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UNITED STATES OF AMEBICA. 



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PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 



REV. J. H. PARMELEE. 




BOSTON: 

a. J. STILES, PRINTER, 

2 \ Franklin Street. 

1SS6. 



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Copyright, 1886, 
By REV. J. H. PARMELEE. 

The L 

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PREFACE. 

Is there any real necessity for a restatement of Christian 
doctrine ? That is a question which in these days is often 
asked. Many reasons for both a positive and a negative 
answer to that question can be furnished. One of the best 
evidences that the Bible is of divine origin, that it came from 
the mind of God, is found in its adaptation to all ages, to all 
classes of society, to all grades of mental ability and culture. 
Men who are wholly ignorant of the works of God in nature, 
find in the Bible an all-sufficient guide to conduct them to 
the shores of a blissful immortality ; while the men versed 
in all knowledge derived from a study of God in creation, 
equally need the instructions of the sacred Scriptures to 
lead them in the same heavenly way and to the same happy 
destiny. The truths of revelation and of science are abid- 
ing, but the human statements of those truths may, and do 
differ. That is necessarily so. The variations in the attain- 
ments of theological learning and scientific research compel 
revisions and restatements of theories propounded and advo- 
cated in other days by other men ; and even the authors of 
those theories are sometimes obliged to surrender positions 
which they themselves once firmly held as sound and im- 
pregnable. 

Whatever significance may be attached to the word " day," 
as used in the first chapter of Genesis, the one supreme fact 
is clearly enough revealed that God is the creator of all 
things. A larger and more thorough knowledge of creation 
may yield clearer views of the meanings couched in the 
language of a divine revelation. Broader and more accurate 
knowledge in the department of philology may modify the 



PREFACE. 



accepted interpretations of some passages in the Bible, and 
even new truths may be discovered in that same old book. 
New disclosures in archaeology may demand other modifica- 
tions in the direction of Biblical exegesis, and of theology 
even. So also advance in the science of astronomy and in 
the study of geology may call for a restatement of many cur- 
rent opinions in the sphere of religious belief. When Galileo 
affirmed that the earth turned on its axis, the priesthood — 
the expounders and champions of the sound orthodoxy of 
the day — were about to sever his head from his body as 
the penalty for his heresy. But who of to-day finds heresy 
in the Copernican system, or is embarrassed by any difficulty 
when he attempts to reconcile that system with the language 
and doctrines of Scripture? Geological research claims to 
find evidence of prehistoric man. If the claim be made 
good, that may call for a new or a much modified statement 
of the current belief as to the Biblical days of creation, and 
of the high moral condition of man as he came from the hand 
of his Creator. So, also, facilities for research and advanced 
views in the moral government of God over man may require 
a restatement of the doctrines of Eschatology. Not many 
decades ago, for a man to be theologically sound, it was 
necessary for him to believe that 

" In Adam's fall 
We sinned all." 

But to-day the personal relation to the once crucified and 
now living Christ is considered a better claim to soundness 
of religious faith. The deeper we draw the waters from the 
wells of true philosophy and science, the clearer and purer 
will be the waters from the wells of God's holy book. The 
Bible and the religion taught therein have nothing to fear, 
but much to gain, in the way of exposition and enforcement, 
from genuine philosophy and science. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Foreshadowing of Creation upon the 

Work of Redemption 5 

CHAPTER II. 
The Kingdom ........ 45 

CHAPTER III. 
The Parousia 67 

CHAPTER IV. 
Resurrection 113 

CHAPTER V. 
Judgment 144 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Apocalypse 163 

Conclusion ........ 197 



PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE FORESHADOWING OF CREATION UPON THE 
WORK OF REDEMPTION. 

The book of nature and the book of revelation, 
when both are correctly interpreted, are equally 
true and are in perfect harmony. Revelation 
was given by inspiration of God, and is as God 
would have it for all the ages. Man must turn over 
the leaves of the book of nature, and slowly learn 
the truths of science. The revelations of science 
sometimes require a modification of our former in- 
terpretations of revelation. 

In the first chapter of Genesis, and the first three 
verses of the second chapter, there is a succinct 
account of creation, sufficient to teach the truth 
needed to be revealed, viz., that God is a personal be- 
ing, and is the creator and fashioner of the universe. 
By the plural form of the word God, Elohim, there 
also seems to be an intimation of the creator as the 
triune God. The manner of fitting up the earth 
and the universe has not been revealed, but left tc 



6 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

man to discover by slow processes. Man, by the use 
of the telescope, enlarged and perfected as it has 
been, and by the researches in geology, has, in 
later years, made wonderful progress in discovering 
the processes of the formation of the universe. 
While much remains to be learned, and while 
some views now held to be true may, by subsequent 
light, need to be modified, yet enough has been set- 
tled to throw much light on the account of creation 
given in Genesis. 

The nebular system, held by La Place, and de- 
veloped by others, is the one now adopted by the 
best scientists. It is sufficient for our purpose 
briefly to hint at what this system is. 

Following the nebular theory, let us note the 
harmony which exists between the first chapter of 
Genesis and the discoveries of scientists. 

"In the beginning God created the heavens and 
the earth. And the earth was without form, and 
void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. 
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
waters." This declares the origin of matter, of 
which the universe is constructed, and asserts that 
God is the creator of it. This matter, as it came 
forth at the divine mandate, was a dark, uniform, 
inactive, exceedingly diffused gaseous fluid. All 
was emptiness and desolation. The Spirit of God, 
then brooding over this vast, dark, gaseous mass, 
imparted to it an energy, causing it to move and 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 7 

act in accordance with uniform laws. That energy 
was developed in the form of attraction, contrac- 
tion, and chemical affinity, resulting in motion. 
As bodies were formed by contraction, there was 
imparted to them a motion, causing them to revolve 
on their axes ; also a projectile, centrifugal motion 
imparted, causing them to move in orbits around a 
great attracting central body. Science has proved 
that light results from motion, the vibrations of 
ether. The contraction taking place in the dark 
created mass would evolve light, just as God 
said, " Let there be light : and there was light." 
There was light long before the sun was established 
as the greater light to rule earth's day. " And 
God divided the light from the darkness." Light 
was one thing, darkness another. Some places 
were light and others were dark. " And God 
called the light Day, and the darkness he called 
Night." "And God said, Let there be a firmament 
in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the 
waters from the waters " By this is meant the 
broad expanse above us, the limit of human vision 
more or less distant, it matters not, which, like an 
imaginary partition, separates the mass of world 
material beyond from that which is this side, with 
which we have to do. 

The mass of original gaseous matter, under the 
divine brooding, and by laws well ascertained, has 
formed into spheres around nuclei or great sun 



S PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

centres, held in their places by the all-pervading 
law of attraction. Leaving now, as the Bible 
does, that which is beyond the expanse where 
fixed stars reign as suns, let us confine our- 
selves to our sun system, and see the process of 
its formation, which may possibly be but a sample 
of other systems which have been constructed 
out of the nebulous gaseous matter which God 
created in the beginning. 

At first the almost inconceivable amount of 
original gaseous matter by attraction and contrac- 
tion formed the sun. The greatness of its mass 
makes it not only the source of light and heat, but 
also the controlling force in the motions of all the 
bodies belonging to the system. Being in a state of 
fluidity, its revolution on its axis would cause it to 
assume a greater equatorial than polar diameter. 
This excess of matter at the equator would at 
length detach itself from the main body and form 
a ring around it, like the rings now seen around 
the planet Saturn, which are in a gaseous state. 
This ring, breaking up, would, by the power of 
attraction, form itself into a sphere, and by the 
motion given it by the sun would begin to revolve 
on its axis, and also in an orbit around the sun. 
Thus Neptune became a planet. Then in like 
manner another ring was formed around the sun, 
broken up and attracted into a sphere, and another 
child, Uranus, was born into the family of the 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 9 

great sun system. So on, successively, Saturn, 
Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, Mercury, and Vulcan ; 
those farthest from the sun being formed first, 
coming to that nearest the sun, which was formed 
last. It may be that some sun-child may yet be 
hid in the mists, and that the first-born may have 
gone so far from home that we have not yet dis- 
covered its wanderings. 

Some of the planets have moons revolving 
around them, being thrown off from the planets 
when in a state of fluidity, in like manner as the 
planets were thrown off from the sun. Science 
has also shown that the substance of the sun, 
earth, and stars is much the same, varying in pro- 
portion, salt, iron, hydrogen, barium, copper, zinc, 
cronium, nickel, etc. Excessive flames of nitrogen 
are sometimes seen in the sun. Some stars are 
without perceivable indications of hydrogen, while 
Sirius has it in abundance. Such discoveries are 
a confirmation of the nebular theory. The earth, 
once luminous, the cooling process going on grad- 
ually, contracted and at length lost its photo- 
sphere. Chemical action continually going on, and 
the heavier portions being ' drawn nearer to the 
centre of the earth, the crust of the earth was 
formed. When sufficiently cool, the hydrogen and 
oxygen united, and formed water, which, being 
lighter, completely enveloped the solid crust of the 
earth. When the oxygen and nitrogen became 



IO PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

sufficiently cooled, they united and formed the at- 
mosphere, which, being lighter, completely envel- 
oped the waters of the earth. As the cooling pro- 
cess still went on, the earth contracted, and the 
crust, in the state of semi-hardness, or in a degree 
plastic, some parts rose and other parts settled, 
like a hoop when pressed on opposite sides. The 
waters which once enveloped the whole surface are 
now divided and thrown together, and the inner 
crust, appears. " And God said, Let the waters 
under the heaven be gathered together unto one 
place, and let the dry land appear. And God 
called the dry land Earth ; and the gathering to- 
gether of the waters called he Sea." Note the apt 
language with which Moses describes the process. 
The crust of the earth was comparatively thin, and 
easily bent and broken, but slowly became thicker 
and more firm. 

In process of time the earth cooled sufficiently 
for vegetation to flourish. "And God said, Let 
the earth bring forth grass, and herb yielding seed, 
and fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose 
seed is in itself, upon the earth." Here is first men- 
tioned the grass and herb, a lower order of vegeta- 
ble life ; then the fruit tree, a higher order ; and 
it may have been ages from the time grass began 
to grow before the fruit tree yielded the fruit after 
its kind. In the earlier stages of the earth's his- 
tory, the atmosphere was humid and warm, and 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. II 

vegetation rapid and abundant. Then the coal- 
beds were formed. The luxuriant plant growth 
and decay at length formed a soil, fitting the earth 
for a higher order of existence. In the mean time 
the sun, with its immense mass of matter, had 
come into such a chemical state, that it was fitted 
to be a luminary of the earth, and the centre and 
controller of the whole solar system. 

The moon, sufficiently condensed and cooled, 
was at length fitted to reflect light on the earth. 
" And God said, Let there be lights in the firma- 
ment of the heavens, to divide the day from the 
night ; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, 
and for days, and for years : and let them be for 
lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light 
upon the earth. And God made two great lights ; 
the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser 
lights to rule the night."* Not that they were 
created at this time, but that, in the process of 
constructing the universe, they now come to per- 
form the office of giving light upon the earth. 

In the passing of the ages, " God said, Let the 
waters bring forth abundantly, the moving crea- 
ture that hath life, and fowl that they may fly 
above the earth in the open firmament of heavens. 
And God created great whales, and every living 
creature that moveth, which the waters brought 
forth abundantly, after their kind, and every 
winged fowl after his kind." Science teaches us 



12 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

that the first creations of animal life were of a low 
order, and as time went on, these became extinct, 
and those of a higher order of animal functions 
took their place ; that animals most useful to man 
were the last that held sway in the earth. Reve- 
lation asserts that fish and fowls were created on 
the fifth day, but beasts and cattle and creeping 
things did not appear till the sixth day. 

At last, God said, " Let us make man in our 
image, after our likeness." " So God created man 
in his own image, in the image of God created he 
him : male and female created he them." A remark 
on the words created and made may help to a better 
understanding of the account of creation. The 
word created is translated from the Hebrew word 
bara, a word with very different meaning from the 
word from which made is translated. The one 
means to bring into existence ; the other means 
more to fashion and mould what has been created. 
In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth. The matter of the universe was brought 
into existence. The word made means more the 
fashioning process going on in the matter after it 
had been created. 

Animal life is so different from the material 
world, from anything in the mineral and vegetable 
kingdom, that it cannot proceed out of it, so " God 
created great whales, and every living thing that 
moveth." So when God determined to make man in 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. I 3 

his image and likeness, it is said : " So God created 
man in his own image, in the image of God created 
he him : male and female created he them." Here 
is amoral nature allying man to God, something so 
different from mere animal life that it cannot be 
developed from it. It is a new creation. 

In the revealed account of creation, we have 
succession and progression clearly revealed, both 
in the words created and made. There were suc- 
cessive creations, and there was constant progress 
in fitting up the universe. Astronomy and geology 
teach the same truth. 

The earth's crust, miles in thickness, holding the 
raging fires within, proves that ages must have 
passed in the process of its formation. The suc- 
cessive geologic formations, azoic and zoic ; the 
prints of vegetable and animal remains in the rocks 
formed far below what is now the surface of the 
earth ; the substances which have been formed by 
chemical action in the crust of the earth ; the slow 
process of abrasion of the surface, the carrying of the 
sediment into the sea, hardening into rocks ; the up- 
heaval of the rocks, bringing to light fossil remains ; 
the upheaval of mountains ; the formations of rich 
prairie lands, where the waters once held sway ; 
the deep gorges cut by rivers like Niagara for many 
miles, advancing only a few feet in a century, — all 
prove that vast periods of time have been consumed 
since the earth lost its photosphere. Who, then, 



14 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

shall attempt to go back and count the years since 
God said, " Let the dry land appear" ? Yea, who 
shall undertake to trace the ages since the creative 
fiat went forth, " And the Spirit of God moved 
upon the face of the deep " ? 

God, in arranging his moral government over 
mankind, has seen fit to measure time by weeks of 
seven days each. He has commanded men to work 
on six days, and to rest from labor on the seventh 
day, — to hallow that day unto the Lord as a holy 
day, a day of worship, a day of moral improvement 
and spiritual refreshment. 

God has taken a week of seven days as a kind 
of mould into which to cast a revelation of his 
work of creation and redemption; not that just 
so much work was done on each day, independent 
of what was done on other days, for the sun was 
being fitted for a sun, and the earth for an earth, 
and the moon for a moon, — all suitable for man's 
need, in the same ages of time, — but that God 
might reveal to man his work of creation as a 
process of development, of succession and pro- 
gression, however slow or rapid, he has used the 
period of seven days, leaving man to discover the 
process as best he can. Six days are used in which 
the creation and formation of the universe and 
the development of the earth's crust take place, 
while the seventh day is devoted to bringing into 
existence and preparing spiritual beings who shall 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. I 5 

proclaim the praise and glory of the Creator. The 
distinction should be kept clear in mind between 
man's week and God's week. Man's week is a 
short and definite period of time divided into equal 
days of definite length. God's week is a period of 
indefinite length divided into long days of indefi- 
nite length. It is said at the close of each of the 
days, " And the evening and the morning were the 
first day," second day, etc. More literally, " It was 
evening and it was morning, one day." "And 
it was evening and it was morning, a second 
day." This expresses constant progression. The 
shades of evening are dark compared with the 
dawning of the day, the rising sun, and noonday 
splendor. Thus the evening of one day glides 
into the morning of the next. God expresses the 
passing from the work of the six days to that of 
the seventh in such language as follows : " Thus 
the heavens and the earth were finished, and all 
the host of them. And on the seventh day God 
finished his work which he had made ; and he 
rested on the seventh day from all his work which 
he had made. And God blessed the seventh day 
and sanctified it ; because that in it he had rested 
from all his work which God created and made." 
God blessed the seventh day. He made it the 
best of all the days, a day in which his most 
blessed work was to be done, a day most blessed 
in the enjoyments it would bring to the universe. 



1 6 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

God sanctified the seventh day. He set it apart 
as a day better than any of the previous ones ; a 
day devoted to making saints or sanctified ones. 
This seventh day's work is the culmination of the 
work of creation. 

The account given in the second and third chap- 
ters of Genesis, of man being put on probation in 
the garden of Eden, the account of the origin of 
institutions by divine authority, the giving of re- 
vealed law in commands and prohibitions, man's 
speedy fall and expulsion from the garden, and the 
immediate promise of a Redeemer and Life-giver, 
reveals the divine design, that man was not to live 
in a condition as first created, nor in a state of in- 
nocence simply, but of redemption and of new 
created spiritual life, that thereby the divine attri- 
butes might be the better known, and man be 
drawn into closer relation to God as the divine 
Father, and thus the universe be made to resound 
with loftier notes of praise to the Creator. The 
seventh day of God's week is the redemption, the 
life-giving day. This life-giving aspect of the work 
was so prominent in the mind of the Apostle John, 
that, in his gospel, he almost omits the mention of 
repentance and forgiveness. It is a new-created 
life by the Holy Spirit, bringing man into higher 
and more intimate relation to the Father of spirits 
than ever before, that the apostle makes promi- 
nent. 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. I 7 

In ascertaining the meaning of some of the 
earlier chapters of Genesis, we need to recognize 
the claims of true science as an important factor 
of interpretation, as well as philology and gram- 
mar. 

From modern investigations, what does science 
claim ? It claims that the popular chronology of 
our Bible, taking us back some twenty-five hundred 
years to the Noachian deluge, or four thousand 
years from the birth of Christ to the creation of 
man, does not give sufficient time for the ethnic, 
or race distinctions which exist. Scientists claim 
that the difference in structural form, the complex- 
ion, the woolly and straight hair, and all the varied 
characteristics between the Negro, the Indian, the 
Mongolian, the Dravidian, and the Caucasian or 
white man, requires vastly more time to be effected 
by any known causes than is found since the 
deluge, if in that deluge the whole human race was 
destroyed, save eight persons, and that the earth 
was repeopled by Noah and those saved with him 
in the ark, or even since Adam was placed in the 
garden of Eden. This, indeed, has been the puz- 
zle of many a one who has laid no claim to being 
versed in science, and to solve it they have fallen 
back upon the almost miraculous working of the 
Creator. 

There is evidence that the descendants of Shem, 
Ham, and Japheth did not soon spread over the 
2 • 



I 8 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

whole earth, but were confined comparatively to 
the region of the Mediterranean. Science claims 
that, with the comparative stability of the crust of 
the earth, and the relative position of the conti- 
nents, islands, oceans, and seas, that it would be 
impossible for the earth to be peopled in all its 
continents and so many of its islands by people 
having so little knowledge of the arts of life, dur- 
ing a period of four thousand years before the 
birth of Christ, if the cradle of the race was the 
garden of Eden, and the world's progenitors a sin- 
gle pair. 

Science claims preadamites. To substantiate 
the claim, it brings forward human bones found in 
the surface of the earth among bones of animals, 
the mammoth, the reindeer, the cave bear, and 
other species now extinct, and which must have 
lived in a geologic period prior to the Adam in the 
garden of Eden. 

Science has found in caves, and buried deep 
in the surface cf the earth, implements fashioned 
from stone, stone arrow-heads, spear-heads, ham- 
mers, axes, knives fastened into bone handles, 
ornaments of stone and bone perforated and strung 
together, all kinds of rude implements used in 
securing a livelihood, in bettering their condition, 
in contending with fierce animals for the posses- 
sion of caves, and in slaying them for food. 
Science calls up the Mound-builders in the western 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. ig 

hemisphere to testify of their ancient works. It 
brings forward evidence of the existence of man in 
the Quaternary period, a geological period preced- 
ing our own. 

Science has its rude and its polished Stone 
epoch, showing human advancement in the arts 
of life. Then comes the Bronze age, when man 
had learned to use brass by combining the metals 
of copper and tin. Succeeding the Bronze was the 
Iron age, when man had learned how to secure 
this metal from its ore and work it into implements 
of defence and husbandry, — learning these things 
as best they could, just as we learn, as best we can, 
how to harness steam and electricity for the ad- 
vancement of our civilization. 

Science claims that man was in the beginning 
rude and uncultured, and that he has worked his way 
up in the arts of civilization and comforts of life, 
learning by experience as we do now. It claims 
also that, if the first created pair were placed in 
the garden of Eden in an advanced state of knowl- 
edge and civilization and happiness, there has been 
degeneration in his whole condition, which is con- 
trary to the acknowledged order of God's working, 
which is progression, and contrary to man's expe- 
rience. It is held as scientific truth that the lower 
races could not have descended from the Mediterra- 
nean stock, because there exists such a wide differ- 
ence in the race characteristics, some so greatly 



20 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

inferior, and that this difference existed in the 
early dynastic periods of Egypt, as shown by their 
paintings and sculpture on their monuments. 

It is claimed that the chronological position of 
Noah or even Adam is far too recent for the possi- 
bility of such a change since their era. Besides, 
that the universal degeneracy of all races is scien- 
tifically inadmissible. 

Does science conflict with the account of man's 
creation, given in the first chapter of Genesis ? 
Nay, rather does not the Biblical account call for 
these truths which science proves ? We read that 
the fowls of the air, the fish of the sea, and the 
sea-monsters, the lower orders of creatures in their 
structural development, were created in the fifth 
day. Geology finds fossil remains of these and 
the imprint of their forms in the rocks of an earlier 
period. But on the sixth day, cattle, creeping 
things, and beasts, animals needful for man's wel- 
fare, were created. These included mammals, or 
milk-giving animals. With their creation we might 
reasonably expect man to be created, for whose use 
they were created. So in the sixth day, we read, 
God said, " Let us make man after our image, after 
our likeness." "And God created man in his own 
image, in the image of God created he him : male 
and female created he them." Mark the lan- 
guage : God created them male and female, as he 
did other animals. This statement should suffice 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 21 

for what God says about man's creation. Whether 
all animals of the same species descended from a 
single pair, or whether God created the same spe- 
cies in different centres of the earth, it matters not. 
Whether the human race all sprung from a single 
pair in a single centre, or whether God created 
different types in different centres, all of one blood, 
all possessing the prime characteristics of manhood, 
it matters not. We hardly need say that we dis- 
claim all belief in evolution, that man was devel- 
oped from an ape or chimpanzee or anything else. 
God created him a man. 

Here, then, we have the creation of man in the 
sixth day. " God said unto them, Be fruitful, and 
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it : 
and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
over the fowl of the air, and over every living 
thing that moveth upon the earth." The language 
is not to be taken like statute law or verbal com- 
mand, for part of the command is given to fish and 
fowl incapable of understanding it. It is the law 
of man's nature, his conscious need and conscious 
superiority prompting to this. The power to 
know, to think, to reason, to remember, to devise, 
to improve his condition, — this image of God is 
man's Magna Charta to the dominion of earth. 
Man goes forth to subdue the earth, and gain 
dominion over the whole animal kingdom. He 
finds obstacles, but he must fight his way through. 



2 2 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

He must devise implements to use, and contend 
with the bear for a morsel of meat, and for the 
possession of a cave, until he learns how to con- 
struct a better dwelling. Since man possesses an 
animal organism, subject to the same physical laws 
as other animals, death included, we might nat- 
urally expect to find human bones and implements 
of art mingled among the bones of those animals 
known to have roamed the earth in the Quater- 
nary epoch, a period of the sixth day of God's 
week. If we bear in mind the cooling process of 
the earth, and that the crust of the earth was for- 
merly thinner and less fixed than now, and that 
the elevation and subsidence of portions of the 
land were more extensive and frequent than at the 
present, and consequently the changes on the sur- 
face greater, though these are going on at present, 
and that God instituted vegetable and animal life 
while these changes were rapid and great, it will 
relieve us from adopting the opinion of the exceed- 
ing great age of man's existence on the earth 
which some scientists claim. Six or ten thou- 
sand years suffice to carry us back to a condition 
of things as described in the latter part of the sixth 
day of God's week. 

Does not the Bible itself give us direct intima- 
tions of preadamites ? If in the third and fourth 
chapters of Genesis we have an account of the first 
human pair, it is difficult to understand the Ian- 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 23 

guage. When Cain slew his brother, and the 
curse was pronounced upon him, he said, " My 
punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, 
thou hast driven me out this day from the face of 
the ground ; and from thy face shall I be hid ; and 
I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth ; 
and it shall come to pass that whosoever findeth 
me shall slay me." Why need he to be a fugitive ? 
His parents would not kill him, and he had slain 
his only brother. Where did he find his wife ? 
where find the people to build a city? Is it not 
clearly implied in the record that there were pre- 
adamites ? 

Cain being a tiller of the ground, and Abel a 
keeper of sheep, implies a more extensive use of 
these products than the four, whose record we 
have, would need. It implies more than an abso- 
lute primitive condition of these employments, as 
does Jabal, who was the father of such as dwell in 
tents and have cattle ; and his brother Jubal, who 
was the father of all such as handle the harp and 
pipe ; and Tubal-cain, the forger of every cutting 
instrument of brass and iron. This denotes a 
state of civilization somewhat advanced when that 
people had passed their Stone age, and were in 
possession of some of the arts of the Bronze and 
Iron age. These things serve to fix the date in 
the world's progress when God called the Edenic 
Adam. 



24 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

We now come to the seventh day of God's week, 
a condensed summary of which is given in the first 
three verses of the second chapter of Genesis. 
" And the heaven and the earth were finished, and 
all the host of them. And on the seventh day 
God finished his work which he had made ; and he 
rested on the seventh day from all his work which 
he had made. And God blessed the seventh day 
and hallowed it ; because that in it he rested from 
all his work, which God created and made." Note 
carefully this language. It can hardly be that 
God has recorded three times in two verses the 
fact that he had closed the work of creation. 
" And the heaven and the earth were -finished," 
does not express the ceasing from the work, but 
the performance of the work. " The heaven and 
the earth prevailed." Then in the second verse 
the word finished is repeated, meaning that he 
finished up or completed the work which he had 
created. Then it is asserted that he rested from 
the work of creation. God works on his Sabbath 
day. But it is a day in which he brings moral 
forces to work on human hearts. So as the first 
moral human institution God gives man a Sabbath 
day, and most closely associates the duty and work 
of man's Sabbath with the work he does on his 
own Sabbath. 

In commenting on the events recorded in the 
earlier chapters of Genesis, we need to enlarge 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 25 

the title of this chapter so that it shall embrace 
the foreshadowing of giving of law on the work 
of redemption. 

At the fourth verse of the second chapter of 
Genesis, God commences the record of his seventh 
day's work. The first work is to man under re- 
vealed moral law. If we will read the language 
used for what it is, and not for what it is not ; not 
as a revelation of how God has done things, not as 
a narration of history, nor biography, but as lan- 
guage which the Creator thought wisest to use in 
establishing new institutions, revealing truth, and 
recording moral lav/ for use in all future time, we 
shall save ourselves no little perplexity and error. 

The garden of Eden is described as embracing 
a section of territory in Western Asia, watered by 
four rivers, the principal of which is the Euphra- 
tes. A man is chosen through whom to reveal 
law, as was Abraham and Moses in after time. As 
this is the first of revelation of law, his name is 
called Adam, the generic name of the race, but 
henceforth to be his proper name. This»is the 
Biblical Adam. In the Scriptures he stands, not 
as the first of the race, but the first to whom moral 
law was given. As revealed moral law was for peo- 
ple from his time onward, so no mention is made 
of any previous to him, except simply of their 
creation. In tracing back the line of his descend- 
ants, we have evidence that he was of the Cau- 



26 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

casian or white race. And we have already seen 
that he was called at a time when those among 
whom he lived had made some progress in the arts 
of life. 

In the latter part of the second chapter is a 
record of the institution of marriage. The lan- 
guage clearly sets forth the divine sanction, the 
mutual relation of the two, its holy character, the 
oneness of the wedded pair, and the obligation to 
care for each other. " Adam was first formed, 
then Eve." The man is the head of the family. 
The rib taken from man pertains to the marriage 
relation, and is not to reveal how woman was 
formed, for God created them male and female, and 
that in the sixth day. Let the rib be kept in the 
right place. 

The account of the trees of the garden is doubt- 
less an allegory, containing the highest law in the 
moral universe, — obedience to God. It is all-em- 
bracing in its application, deep enough for the pro- 
foundest philosopher, and yet so simple that a 
child can understand it. " The tree of knowledge 
of good and evil " is a symbol of obedience, and 
the self-approval resulting therefrom, and the con- 
demnation resulting from disobedience. Physical 
death is a natural law to the animal creation. Man 
possessing an animal nature, like other animals has 
his infancy, matures, grows old and feeble, and 
dies. Physical death is the basis of the meaning 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 2 J 

of the penalty for sin. " In the day thou eatest 
thereof, thou shalt surely die." They understood 
the meaning of natural death, and by the threat- 
ened penalty understood something evil, and soon 
came to know by experience the meaning of spirit- 
ual death. When Adam had eaten of the forbid- 
den fruit, he felt strangely, and hid himself; he 
knew not how to express his strange sensation, and 
when called to an account, he said he was naked, 
expressing indeed a greater truth than he under- 
stood. Adam dies. Conscious guilt is spiritual 
death. It is a condition of soul called death in all 
succeeding revelation. The language and symbols 
used in pronouncing the penalty upon Satan, for 
tempting man, and upon Eve and Adam, individ- 
ually, for their transgression, could not fail to teach 
them, and all future generations, God's great dis- 
approbation of sin; just the moral lesson they 
need first to learn. In pronouncing the penalty 
upon the woman, the first to transgress, God prom- 
ises a Messiah to come, the seed of the woman, 
the Son of God indeed, yet born in the flesh, who 
would be man's Redeemer and Life Giver. 

" The tree of life in the midst of the garden is 
the symbol of this new spiritual life, as we may infer 
from what Christ says to the seven churches." 
" To him that overcometh, to him will I give to 
eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of 
the Paradise of God." Rev. 2 : 7. Also from the 



25 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

" tree of life," which stood upon the banks of the 
river of life, which "proceeded out of the throne of 
God and the Lamb." Rev. 22 : 1. " God drove out 
the man ; and he placed at the east of the garden 
of Eden, the Cherubim, and the flame of the sword 
which turned every way, to keep the way of the 
tree of life." As the cherubim of beaten gold, 
looking toward the mercy seat in the holy of 
holies, symbolized the way of life to the Jews, so 
we may infer that the cherubim set to " keep the 
way of the tree of life " were the divine messen- 
gers or symbols of the divine messengers of mercy 
to point the way through the promised seed to the 
tree of life, "and the flame of a sword which turned 
every way " proclaimed most significantly that 
there is no other way but through the promised 
seed, to the tree of life. Here, then, in the second 
and third chapters, we have a wonderfully con- 
densed compact of divine revelation, of which the 
rest of the Bible is but an expansion. 

In the fourth chapter is a record of the way God 
sets his seal on. the scheme of salvation through the 
blood of the promised Messiah. Cain, a " tiller of 
the ground," and Abel, a "keeper of sheep," both 
bring an offering unto the Lord of what each pos- 
sessed, and perhaps with equally right motives. 
God rejects Cain's offering, and accepts Abel's. 
He sets his seal upon Abel's offering, because 
there is blood and the sacrifice of life in it. 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 2 Q 

This is the first typical offering, made so by the 
divine sanction. It is the revelation needed to be 
made as pointing to the great sacrifice to come. 
Cain is angry and slays his brother, the first 
murder under revealed law. In the penalty pro- 
nounced, and in the anguish of Cain, we see the 
penalty for murder. The murderer is a fugitive in 
the earth, not staying long enough in one place 
for the earth to yield her strength to him. Here, 
too, is the first great lesson of God to man, of the 
sacredness of human life. Soon Seth is born of 
the spiritual line of Abel, and " to him also there 
was born a son ; and he called his name Enos, 
then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.'' 
Here is a spiritual seed, men born of God through 
faith in the promised Messiah, and called "sons of 
God," as we shall soon see. There is communion 
between man and God, resulting from the new-cre- 
ated spiritual life. Generations succeed each other 
and Enoch is born. "And Enoch walked with 
God ; and he was not, for God took him." Here 
is obedience and fellowship with God, and a new 
revelation of a future life. 

Other generations succeed, and Noah is born. 
"Noah was a righteous man, and perfect in his 
generations ; Noah walked with God." But another 
scene opens, another revelation is to be made, and 
that is, God's abhorrence for sin. " And it came 
to pass, when men began to multiply on the face 



30 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

of the ground, and daughters were born unto them, 
that the sons of God saw the daughters of men 
that they were fair ; and they took them wiv.es of 
all that they chose." 

" The sons of God," those spiritually born, inter- 
married with the ungodly and worldly, and terrible 
degeneracy followed. " And the Lord saw that 
the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and 
that every imagination of the thoughts of his 
heart was only evil continually. And it repented 
the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and 
grieved him at his heart." 

This language reveals not only the greatness of 
man's sin, but also the depth at which God finds 
it, and his utter abhorrence of it. He commands 
Noah to build an ark for the preservation of him- 
self and family. The ark is a type of Christ, who 
saves all that come unto him. The declaration, 
" My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for 
that he also is flesh ; yet shall his days be an 
hundred and twenty years," expresses not the 
time Noah was building the ark, but man's proba- 
tion, his time for repentance, probably the average 
age alloted to man in those days. God said to 
Noah, "But I will establish my covenant with 
thee ; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and 
thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with 
thee." This is the covenant of salvation through 
the appointed way. When Noah had brought the 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 3 1 

animals into the ark, and made provision for them 
according to direction, and when he and his 
family were safely enclosed within, then " were all 
the fountains of the great deep broken up, and 
the windows of heaven were opened. And the 
rain was upon the earth forty days and forty 
nights." The deluge was doubtless local, and 
did not destroy all the people from the face 
of the earth, but it extended over sufficiently 
wide extent to be a revelation to all the world, 
and to teach all future generations of God's ha- 
tred to sin, and of the certainty and severity of 
his judgments. The language in the narration is 
to be taken as in the New Testament, where it is 
said that " there went out a decree from Caesar 
Augustus, that all the world should be enrolled." 
This meant only the Roman Empire, for Csesar 
had no right or power to tax the rest of the world. 
It was doubtless effected by those natural causes 
which have been shaking and breaking up the 
crust of the earth in all the past ages. " The 
foundations of the great deep were broken up." 
It is just what an earthquake does when it takes 
place under the ocean, and when, from internal 
causes, there is effected a sudden subsidence of 
land, and then an upheaval. It was such a calam- 
ity, only of wider extent, as came upon the island 
of Scio in 188 1, when five thousand of the people 
were suddenly buried under the rubbish, and soon 



32 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

four thousand more, and in less than an hour Scio 
was in utter ruin. A similar calamity took place 
in Ischia, July 28, 1883. So, also, in the southern 
part of Andalusia, in Spain, fifty-six towns were 
devastated in less than ten seconds, and nearly 
twenty of these places were entirely destroyed. 
It speaks all the louder as a revelation to men, as 
being produced by natural causes, for it shows that 
as the physical laws are so under the direction of 
God as to bring judgments when deserved, so are 
the moral laws of his government so adjusted to 
the conduct of men, as to bring the just retribu- 
tion for sin, as by a natural consequence. This 
was a fearful revelation to the wicked in the world's 
future, as was the saving of those in the ark a 
joyful revelation to all them who will put their trust 
in Christ and obey him. When Noah came forth 
from the ark, he built an altar and offered a sacri- 
fice of burnt offerings. And God confirmed the 
covenant with him, saying, " This is the token of 
the covenant which I make between me and you, 
and every living creature that is with you, for per- 
petual generations : I do set my bow in the cloud, 
and it shall be for a token of the covenant between 
me and the earth." That " bow in the cloud," seen 
for thousands of years before, and become perma- 
nent in their expectations, is now made a token of 
the divine faithfulness. " And the bow shall be in 
the cloud : and I will look upon it, that I may 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 33 

remember the everlasting covenant between God 
and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the 
earth." The bow is the token of the divine faith- 
fulness in supplying the natural wants of man and 
all living creatures, but more especially of the cove- 
nant of grace, established with Noah as he entered 
the ark, which covenant was to find its fulfilment 
in the great antitype of the ark, Jesus Christ, who 
saves with an everlasting salvation all who come 
to him. Whenever the bow appears, let us learn 
to read in it, God is faithful. 

When Noah and his sons came forth from the 
ark, God again enforced the value of human life, 
the worth of man, and incorporated the lesson in 
revealed law, that whatever or whoever takes the 
life of man, forfeits his own life. " Whoso sheddeth 
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." 
The reason is given, " For in the image of God 
made he man." This was not simply for the wel- 
fare and security of society, but to reveal to man 
the value of man, to teach his exalted position 
among all created beings. 

The account of the building of the tower of Babel 
is not simply a narration of history, but stands as 
an object lesson in revealed law for all nations to 
read. " And it came to pass, as they journeyed 
east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar ; 
and they dwelt there." " And they said, Go to, 
let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top 
3 



34 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

may reach unto heaven, and let us make a name ; 
lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the 
whole earth." It was in the spirit of Nimrod 
who " began to be a mighty one in the earth. 
He was a mighty hunter before the Lord." The 
name Nimrod signifies rebel. They were for set- 
ting up for themselves, independent of Jehovah, 
relying upon their wisdom and strength. All at 
once their language is confounded, they do not un- 
derstand one another's speech. Their work ceases, 
and they are scattered abroad. The language of 
Jehovah is, Behold how easy I can thwart all 
your undertakings. Learn, then, your dependence 
on me. It is like the language of Jesus to the man 
contemplating pulling down his barns to build 
greater : " Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul 
required of thee." 

When we read that "all the days of Methuselah 
were nine hundred and sixty and nine years ; and 
he died," it causes no little perplexity to account 
for the great apparent longevity of man before the 
flood, and the great shortening of human life soon 
after, and as we see at present that the age of 
man, seems to be fixed at threescore years and 
ten by a physical constitution. This seeming lon- 
gevity may be only apparent. It may be put in such 
language for the purpose of giving us a chronology 
which is important, and not to state the age of men 
when they die, which is unimportant. The age of 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 35 

the father may be given at the time when the son 
was born in whom the line of descent was to be 
traced ; afterward the father's name may be used as 
a family or tribal name. At the time at which 
death is stated, the family or tribe may have been 
merged in others, so as to have lost its distinct 
characteristics as a tribe or nation. It is said of 
the descendants of the sons of Noah, " after their 
families, after their tongues, in their lands, after 
their nations." This shows the manner of tribal 
life in those days, each designated by the name of 
the head of the family. Judah and Ephraim are 
tribal as well as individual names. We do well to 
read the fifth chapter for just what God says it is, 
"This is the book of the generations of Adam." 
In the eleventh chapter the genealogy is given 
from Noah, through the descendants of Shem to 
Abraham. In the New Testament we have the 
genealogy from Abraham to Christ and from Adam 
to Christ. The genealogy is of great value as lay- 
ing one of the chief corner-stones of evidence that 
the Bible is the revealed word of God. It enables 
us to trace back the centuries to the time when 
God began to make verbal revelations to man, 
which culminated in the revelation of himself in 
Jesus Christ, who is God manifest in the flesh, and 
the fulfilment of the law and the prophets ; to trace 
the time from the first Adam, under whom men 
began to die a spiritual death through disobedience 



36 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

of revealed law, to the second Adam, in whom they 
are made alive by the power of God through a 
revealed gospel. 

There are some passages in the New Testament 
which confirm this view of the Edenic Adam. 
Adam and Christ are contrasted with, and are 
complements to, each other. Adam represents 
Law, Christ the Gospel. Through Adam we see 
the penalty of disobedience, through Christ the 
blessedness of obedience. Through Adam came 
spiritual death, through Christ comes spiritual life. 
"As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be 
made alive." The two are so related that Christ 
is called the second Adam ; also Adam the figure 
of Christ. 

To the first Adam was given law ; the second 
fulfils it. Christ is the end of the law to believers. 

When Paul healed the impotent man at Lystra, 
the priests and the multitude could scarcely be 
restrained from doing sacrifice unto him ; but he 
said, " We are men of like passions with you, and 
bring you good tidings, that ye should turn from 
these vain things unto the living God, who made 
the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that 
in them is ; who in the generations gone by suf- 
fered all the nations to walk in their own ways. 
And yet he left not himself without witness, in 
that he did good, and gave you from heaven rain 
and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 37 

and gladness." Acts 14: 15-17. Here is an intima- 
tion at least that there was a time in the genera- 
tions gone by when they were without revealed 
law, when all the nations were suffered to walk in 
their own ways, their only revelation being God's 
providence giving them fruitful seasons. So also 
when Paul walked the streets of Athens and saw 
the inscription, "To the unknown God," he said, 
"The times of ignorance, therefore, God over- 
looked ; but now commandeth men that they 
should all everywhere repent ; inasmuch as he 
hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge 
the world in righteousness by the man whom he 
hath ordained." Acts 17 : 30. Here also is an 
intimation of the condition of preadamites when 
men were without revealed law, and consequently 
God did not call them to an account. So Paul 
again says to the Christians at Rome, " For as 
many as have sinned without law shall also perish 
without law ; and as many as have sinned under the 
law shall be judged by the law." Rom. 2: 12. This 
passage shows that men are to be judged according 
to the light they have had, and it implies that there 
is such a thing as being entirely without a knowl- 
edge of God's law. " Through the law cometh a 
knowledge of sin." Rom. 3 : 20. Through the re- 
vealed law, actions which may have appeared to 
men without moral quality, come to be seen as 
sinful. So Paul speaks " of the passing over of the 



3S PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God." 
And Paul declares plainly that " the law worketh 
wrath ; but where there is no law, neither is there 
transgression." Rom. 4:15. 

It is through revealed law that action becomes 
sinful. So when a law was revealed to Adam, he 
became conscious that certain actions were sinful; 
as Paul says, " Therefore, as through one man sin 
entered into the world, and death through sin ; and 
so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned ; 
for until the law sin was in the world ; but sin is 
not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless 
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over 
them that had not sinned after the likeness of 
Adam's transgression." Rom. 5:12, 13, 14. The 
Edenic Adam, through violation of revealed law, 
sinned and brought upon himself spiritual death ; 
so it has been ever since. The same actions, done 
before the law was revealed, were not sinful, sin is 
not imputed ; but after the law is revealed, they 
become sinful, because they become a violation of 
law. Many actions are sinful, any one of which 
brings death, and those who had not committed the 
same violation of law which Adam did, yet in some 
other act had violated law, so death reigned over 
them who had not sinned after the likeness of 
Adam's transgression. Does not this passage 
reveal the moral condition of preadamites ? They 
had no revealed law, and sin was not imputed to 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 39 

them. As Paul again says, " Is the law sin ? God 
forbid ; howbeit, I had not known sin, except 
through the law ; for I had not known coveting, 
except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet ; but 
sin finding occasion, wrought in me through the 
commandment all manner of coveting : for apart 
from the law sin is dead." Rom. 7 '. 7, 8. Most 
clearly Paul here asserts that sin and spiritual 
death are brought about by violation of revealed 
law. A single glimpse at the law reveals sinful- 
ness, and brings death. But the law also " is our 
schoolmaster to bring us to Christ" And Christ 
is the end of the law unto righteousness to every 
one that belieyeth." It is not therefore a " Para- 
dise lost " that we should sigh over, and pray to 
have regained ; not a " Paradise regained " that we 
should covet ; but a Paradise gained, — something 
vastly better than Eden ever knew, a new and 
higher life, not lost in Adam, but gained by a new 
spiritual life created in Christ. 

God's seventh day's work, therefore, is not 
simply recovering lost souls from an apostasy, but 
raising them through revealed law and apostasy, 
and the gospel, to a spiritual likeness to himself, to 
be "sons of God," which prepares them for the 
presence, appreciation, and enjoyment of God, 
giving them not only a clearer intellectual percep- 
tion of God as creator, but a heart appreciation of 
God as a loving Heavenlv Father. 



40 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

While each of the creative days of God's week was 
an indefinitely long period of time, does it not afford, 
if not absolute proof, yet very strong presumptive 
evidence, that the redemptive Sabbath day of his 
week will also be a long period of time ? Shall the 
last, the rest, the redemptive, the best day, be less 
in duration than each of the other days, which seem 
to be but a preparation for the redemptive day ? 
■Does not the glory of the divine plan culminate in 
what takes place on the redemptive day? 

The slowness of the discovery of the vastness, 
beauty, and grandeur of creation ; the slowness of 
the development of the work of redemption during 
the four thousand years from the time of the 
promise of a Redeemer to the time when the Son 
of God was revealed on earth as Son of man, and 
crucified, laying down his life as an offering for sin, 
very strongly suggests that those centuries were 
but the dawn of the Sabbath day of God's week. 
And as the sun advances slowly to the zenith of 
light and glory, and as slowly descends to the hori- 
zon, will it not make a day corresponding in length 
to the other days of God's week ? And as there 
was constant progress from inferior to superior, 
from less perfect to more perfect, so that the last 
of each of the days was better than the first of 
it, so, also, we may believe it will be in the Sabbath 
day ; and by this our hearts may be inspired with 
high hopes of the work to be done amid the noon 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 4 1 

and afternoon glory. Does not this greatly mili- 
tate against the idea that the New Testament writ- 
ers taught, or that the early disciples expected, that 
Christ would soon come and put an end to the 
redemptive work? Should it not also guard us 
against the belief that he will soon close the Sab- 
bath of redemption, while the earth is still shrouded 
in moral darkness ? Should it not rather encourage 
the hope that such may be its length that the gospel 
shall completely triumph over every form of moral 
evil, and that in the mid-day splendor and after- 
noon of God's Sabbath, the masses of earth's inhab- 
itants, as they pass over the stage of action, shall 
come under the power of redemption, and that 
the hundred and forty-four thousand sealed from 
the twelve tribes of Israel, which John saw in 
the Apocalyptic vision, be but a prelude, a few 
drops in the bucket, "to the great multitude which 
no man could number, of all nations and kindred 
and peoples and tongues, which stood before the 
throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white 
robes, and palms in their hands ; and cried with a 
loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God, who sit- 
teth upon the throne and unto the Lamb," calling 
forth the response from the angels who stood about 
the throne, saying, "Amen: Blessing and glory 
and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power 
and might be unto our God for ever and ever. 
Amen " ? Rev. 7. 



42 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

The order of creation throws light, we think, on 
the doctrine of the resurrection. The constant 
progression from a lower to a higher order in the 
structure of the earth's crust ; in the flora of the 
earth, advancing from the simplest fern to the 
"tree bearing fruit after his kind" ; in the fauna, 
proceeding from the polyp clinging fast to the bot- 
tom of the sea, to the mammalia, useful to man ; 
the metamorphosis of some animals, always with 
higher bodily functions ; the pre-natal state of man, 
succeeded by natural life, — strongly suggest that 
when man shall shuffle off the mortal coil, there 
shall be developed at once a spiritual body more 
perfect for his use than anything which is in the 
grave or could ever come from the grave, all suffi- 
cient, fitting man for the spiritual realm to which 
he goes, and if adequate for a thousand years, so 
also for a million and good for eternity. Does not 
God's law of progression preclude the idea of the 
soul ever coming back to pick up a body from the 
earth ? 

Besides, if the redemptive day is as long as the 
other days of God's week, it would seem a long 
time for the soul to wait for a body to fit it for its 
legitimate work in eternity. It looks unreasonable 
that the soul should be without a body, and thus 
cramped and hampered and compelled to wait an 
indefinitely long period before being fully fledged 
for its eternal flight. 



FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 43 

The same argument affords a presumptive ground 
of belief that man's judgment is passed upon him, 
and his destiny for weal or woe fixed, as he passes 
from this world ; that the saints are attuned and 
fully equipped for glory, and enter at once upon the 
grand work of filling creation with praise ; and that 
the unredeemed are sensible of their failure, folly, 
and sin, and come under the pangs of bitter regret 
and condemnation ; all passing to a greater develop- 
ment of joy or sorrow, and not waiting, it may be, 
for a million of years, more or less, for a judicial 
determination of their state and their awards. 

The successive creations during the creative 
week, culminating in man, created in the image of 
God, foreshadow the design of God to glorify him- 
self by placing man in the nearest and highest 
possible relation to himself. This is a state of 
redemption. This, too, is a new creation. "Born, 
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of 
God." " Born of the Spirit." "Except a man be 
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God." God's "workmanship, 
created in Christ Jesus." " If any man be in 
Christ, he is a new creature." This state cannot 
be fostered by human culture, no power of man 
can produce it, any more than man in the image 
of God can result from mere animal life. It is a 
new creation. This new life created in Christ 
•Jesus brings man into closer kinship with God 



44 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

than ever before, and secures to him a divine 
life. 

We should not close this chapter without a word 
in regard to moral obligation. Our whole duty- 
lies within the sphere of revelation. And revela- 
tion, aside from the first chapter of Genesis, covers 
the period of God's Sabbath. The future condi- 
tion of preadamites does not concern us. Nor is 
there any probation after death revealed. In all 
Christendom there is sufficient law revealed so that 
spiritual death reigns. In most of the heathen na- 
tions, the idolatry, sacrifices, and religious observ- 
ances show that law has been handed down to 
them by tradition, so that spiritual death reigns 
among them. Everywhere, men are found without 
spiritual life. Many are sighing for light and life. 
Such facts call for the most earnest efforts of all, 
who have risen to spiritual life in Christ Jesus, 
to extend the triumphs of the gospel to earth's 
remotest bounds. 



THE KINGDOM. 45 

CHAPTER II. 

THE KINGDOM. 

The Old Testament Scriptures, in themselves, 
do not teach a complete system of religion. They 
are introductory to what follows in the New Tes- 
tament, which is called the kingdom, the kingdom 
of heaven, the kingdom of God. It is a kingdom 
present on the earth during the New Testament 
dispensation, a kingdom to abide forever. Christ 
is king of this kingdom. The king and kingdom 
are foretold in the Old Testament. In the vision 
which Daniel had, of the image of gold, silver, iron, 
brass, and clay, representing the kingdoms of the 
earth, he beheld another kingdom. " And in the 
days of these kings shall the God of heaven set 
up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed ; and 
the kingdom shall not be left to another people, 
but it shall break in pieces and consume all these 
kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." " The stone 
cut out of the mountain" by divine wisdom and 
power shall break in pieces " the iron, the brass, the 
clay, the silver, and the gold." Dan 2 : 44, 45. 
Moses declares, " The Lord thy God shall raise up 
unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy 



46 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

brethren, like unto me ; unto him shall ye hearken." 
Deut. 18: 15. Isaiah beheld the king in vision when 
he said, " For unto us a child is born, unto us a son 
is given : and the government shall be upon his 
shoulders ; and his name shall be called Wonderful, 
Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting 
Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of 
his government and peace there shall be no end, 
upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, 
to order it and establish it with judgment and with 
justice, from henceforth even forever." Is. 9 : 6, 7. 
The peaceable principles of the kingdom are also 
foretold in connection with the king. " The wolf 
also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall 
lie down with the kid ; and the calf, and the young 
lion, and the fatling together; and a little child 
shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall 
feed, their young ones shall lie down together, and 
the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suck- 
ing child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the 
weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice 
den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my 
holy mountain ; for the earth shall be full of the 
knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the 
sea. And in that day there shall be a root of 
Jesse, which will stand for an ensign of the people, 
to it shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall 
be glorious." Is. 11 : 6-10. Zechariah foresaw 
the triumphs of this king. "Rejoice greatly, O 



THE KINGDOM. 47 

daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem ; 
behold thy King cometh unto thee ; he is just, and 
having salvation ; lowly and riding upon an ass, 
and upon a colt the foal of an ass." " And he shall 
speak peace unto the heathen, and his dominion 
shall be from sea even to sea ; and from the river 
even to the ends of the earth." Zech. 9 : 9, 10. 
David sang of the dominion of the coming king. 

The types and shadows of the Old Testament 
point forward to the grand realities of the king- 
dom as recorded in the New. The temple was a 
type of the kingdom. The holy of holies was a 
type of the visible dwelling-place of God. No other 
place on earth was so sacred. All thoughts of 
atonement and holiness converge toward it. There 
was the mercy seat, before which the high priest 
ministered, sprinkling the blood before and upon 
it. There the incense was burnt and the smoke 
arose. Toward the mercy seat, the cherubim, the 
emblems of God's messengers of mercy to man, 
turned their faces while the high priest, the type 
of Christ, sprinkled the blood of the sin offering, 
the type of the Lamb of God. This was the place 
where God and man could meet. Before the holy 
of holies stood the altar of incense, showing that 
only as the blood precedes, can prayers be answered 
or worship accepted. At one side of the holy 
place stood the golden candlestick, typifying 
Christ as the light of the world. On the other 



48 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

side was the table of showbread, typifying Christ 
as the bread of life. Before the holy place stood 
the laver of brass, where the priests must wash to 
secure ceremonial purity ; and the brazen altar 
where the sacrificial victims were offered, and 
where the priest ministered, typical of Christ sac- 
rificed for us, and Christ our great high priest, 
Christ the Daysman between God and us. In the 
ceremonial observances about the altar and temple, 
the blood and water were both alike significant. 
The blood typified the work of Christ, the water 
the work of the Spirit. To be consecrated as 
priest, the sons of Aaron must change their gar- 
ments and wash at the laver. The water was 
sprinkled as well as the blood to indicate holiness. 
" Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and 
ye shall be clean ; from all yourfilthiness, and from 
all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart 
also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put 
within you ; and I will take away your stony heart 
out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart 
of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, 
and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye 
shall keep my judgments and do them." Ezek. 
36: 25, 27. 

The Passover is a type of Christ, as the great 
atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. Moses 
leading the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, and 
the paschal lamb, whose blood, sprinkled upon the 



THE KINGDOM. 



49 



door-posts, saved the first-born from death by the 
destroying angel, prefigure Christ, our great High 
Priest, the Lamb of God, whose blood, sprinkled 
upon the conscience, enables us to draw nigh to 
God with confidence ; " Christ, our Passover, sac- 
rificed for us." There are three kinds of offerings 
described in Leviticus, distinguished from each 
other and yet closely related, — the Sin, the Burnt, 
and the Peace Offerings. The Sin Offering de- 
noted atonement for sin. An animal without 
blemish was to be slain, and the blood sprinkled 
upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense, and 
all the blood poured out at the foot of the altar 
where the burnt offering was made, and the fat 
burned on the altar. The whole ceremony was 
most significant of atonement. 

In making a Burnt Offering, a male without blem- 
ish from the herd or flock must be taken, " and he 
shall offer it of his own voluntary will, at the door 
of the congregation, before the Lord. And he 
shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt of- 
fering ; and it shall be accepted for him, to make 
an atonement for him." The victim was to be 
killed and flayed, and the blood sprinkled before 
the altar, and those parts of the animal liable to 
be affected by dirt or filth were to be washed in 
water and then burnt. "And the priest shall burn 
all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering 
made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord." 

4 



5<D PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

The typical significance of the burnt offering is 
co?)iplcte consecration. Not simply the best, but all 
parts were to be burnt unto the Lord, showing 
that the thing typified, which in the New Testa- 
ment is the disciple of Christ, is to give himself 
wholly to the Lord. 

The Meat, or Peace Offering, consisted of fine 
flour, and oil, and frankincense. This was to be 
separated, and the priests were to eat their portion 
of it, and the rest was to be burnt as a memorial 
before the Lord. This offering denoted commun- 
ion with God. These three offerings in connection- 
typify the way by which a soul may approach unto 
God. If he would bring the burnt offering of 
consecrated service, and the peace offering of 
prayer, praise, and communion with God, in one 
hand, he must bring the sin. offering of atonement 
in the other. All acts of service and devotion 
need to be under the blood. While the will brings 
the burnt offering, faith must bring the sin of- 
fering. The observances and offerings on the 
great day of atonement, recorded in Leviticus 16, 
are wonderfully significant as a type of forgiveness 
through Christ. The ceremonial purification of 
the high priest, by offerings and washings, the sac- 
rifice of one goat as a sin offering, and the sending 
the other away into the wilderness as a scapegoat, 
are significant of forgiveness. The passover and 
ceremonies on the great day of atonement hold 



THE KINGDOM. 5 I 

up Christ in type, before the world, as the way and 
qnly way of pardon and acceptance. 
\ The second annual feast of the Jews, occurring 
fi^y days after the passover, and hence called Pen- 
tecost, prefigured the coming and work of the 
Ho\y Spirit, the washing of regeneration. Fifty 
daya^after the Israelites had left Egypt and had 
encamped at Sinai, the law was given to the peo- 
ple, which Moses had received at the hand of the 
Lord. The people accepted it, and a new nation 
was bc^n, one chief characteristic of which was 
the recognition of Jehovah as their Sovereign. 
The gretf feature of the celebration was the pres- 
entation of the loaves, made of the first fruit of 
the wheatharvest, baked with leaven and suitable 
for ordinaiy food. With this were offered several 
lambs, witlout blemish, of the first year, and one 
young bulbck and two rams for a burnt offering. 
It prefigure\ what Paul calls, " Sanctification of the 
Spirit," and \he indwelling and life-giving and life- 
sustaining pcWer of the Holy Spirit. Leviticus 23. 
They were net allowed to commence the harvest 
until they had kept this feast. The work of the 
Spirit is the beginning of the work of redemp- 
tion. How si<hificant that Christ was crucified 
near the hour oikilling the Passover, and the Spirit 
was poured out <n the apostles on the day of Pen- 
tecost ! \ 

Another cererjony connected with the " water 



52 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

of separation " is not without its significance. The 
Jews were to take a red heifer without blemish anc 
sacrifice it, and sprinkle the blood upon it, and bun 
it and sprinkle the blood upon it, and mingle tie 
ashes with water, and this was called the "wa:er 
of separation." And when any person or tHng 
had become ceremonially unclean, there was to be 
sprinkled upon them the water of sepantion. 
Soldiers returning from the war and the spoils 
taken were to have the water of separation applied 
to them. How clearly this prefigures the Chris- 
tian's separateness from the world and enforces the 
apostolic injunction, " Wherefore come »ut from 
among them, and be ye separate, saith tie Lord, 
and touch not the unclean thing ; and I wll receive 
you, and will be a father unto you, and [Q shall be 
my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." 
Of like import was the plate of pun gold upon 
which was engraven, as with a signe, " Holiness 
unto the Lord" to be placed on the :ore-front of 
the mitre and worn on the head of tte high priest, 
It typified the holiness of those who ae made kings 
and priests unto God. 

It must be borne in mind that the types and 
shadows in the Old Testament signified grand 
realities in the Gospel age, not smply what the 
Gospel should effect and to be experienced in 
heaven, nor that which would be n a later period 
of the Gospel age, nor do they show the deeper 



THE KINGDOM. 53 

experience of advanced Christian character. They 
typify rather the normal Christian standing and 
life as exhibited in the New Testament. As those 
who ministered with the types were ceremonially 
pure, so shall those who accept and adopt the things 
typified stand absolutely complete in the acceptance 
and love of God. 

Enough has been said to enable the reader to 
understand the bearing of the types and shadows 
upon the writings of the New Testament. The 
single term which, more than any other, embodies 
the fulfilment of the types and shadows, is the 
kingdom. More than one hundred times in the 
New Testament is this term found, referring to 
something existing on the earth during the Gospel 
age; consequently it is a present kingdom. Some- 
times, but not as often, it refers to the same king- 
dom as existing beyond the scenes of time. The 
reader's attention is specially called to the expres- 
sions which denote it to be present in this world. 
" The kingdom of heaven is at hand." It is called 
the kingdom^ showing its superiority to all other 
kingdoms. " It is your Fathers good pleasure to 
give you the kingdom." 

"Jesus went about Galilee, teaching in their 
synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the 
kingdom." Mat. 4: 23. "The kingdom of the 
world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and 
of his Christ ; and he shall reign for ever and 



54 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

ever." Rev. n : 15. It is called the kingdom of 
God, denoting that God is the true sovereign of 
the heart. " Jesus came into Galilee, preaching 
the Gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying the 
time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand ; 
repent ye and believe the Gospel." Mark 1 : 14 
" But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his 
righteousness." Mat. 6 : 33. " But when they be. 
lieved Philip preaching the things concerning the 
kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, 
they were baptized both men and women." Acts 
8 : 12. Christ declared that " The law and the 
prophets were until John ; since that time the 
kingdom of God is preached, and every man press- 
ethintoit." Luke 16 : 16. The phrase "kingdom 
of God " is used nearly fifty times in the New 
Testament, denoting something already existing on 
the earth. It is called the kingdom of heaven to 
denote its privileges and blessings. John " preached 
in the wilderness of Judea, saying, Repent ye, 
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Mat. 3 : 2. 
Christ's mission was one of blessings. When he 
heard that John was cast into prison, he departed 
into Galilee and " began to preach and to say ; 
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 
Mat. 4: 17. "Blessed are the poor in Spirit; for 
theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Mat. 5:3. So 
great are the blessings of the kingdom that Christ 
said of John the Baptist, " though the greatest 



THE KINGDOM. 55 

among the prophets, yet he that is least in the 
kingdom is greater than he." 

Christ is the king of this kingdom. He says, 
" My kingdom is not of this world ; if my kingdom 
were of this world, then would my servants fight, 
that I should not be delivered up to the Jews, but 
now is my kingdom not from hence." John 18 : 
36. Pilate asked, " Art thou a king ? " Then 
Jesus answered, " Thou sayest that I am a king. 
To this end was I born, and for this end came I 
into the world, that I should bear witness unto the 
truth." " He is the blessed and only Potentate, 
the King of kings and Lord of lords." The dis- 
ciples recognized Christ as king. The aspiring 
mother of Zebedee's children said, " Grant that my 
two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand and the 
other on thy left, in thy kingdom." Christ said to 
the Pharisees and Sadducees, " Verily I say unto 
you, there be some standing here who shall not 
taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming 
in his kingdom." Mat. 16 : 28. His kingdom was 
to be fully set up on earth, while some standing 
there were yet living. When the great earthly 
conqueror had himself been conquered and lost his 
kingdom, and was about to die, he exclaimed, " Be- 
hold the destiny now at hand of him who has been 
called the great Napoleon ! What an abyss be- 
tween my great misery and the eternal reign of 
Christ, who is proclaimed, loved, and adored, 



56 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

and whose kingdom is extending over all the 
earth." 

It is a spiritual kingdom. The subjects are all 
spiritually born, and children of the King. It 
consists in the loyalty to Christ, Christ " being 
crowned as Lord in the heart," and the legitimate 
experience which follows. Paul said, " I am cruci- 
fied with Christ : nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but 
Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now live 
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, 
who loved me, and gave himself for me." Gal. 2 : 
20. The voice of the King is heard, saying, 
" Follow thou me," and the response of the heart 
is, " Lo, I have left all and followed thee." The 
will must stereotype the prayer upon the heart, 
" Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? " The dis- 
ciple, like Caleb and Joshua, must " follow the Lord 
wholly." Such " hath God delivered from the 
power of darkness, and hath translated into the 
kingdom of his dear Son." Constant and complete 
loyalty is the key-note of the kingdom. Christ 
was revealed "that we, being delivered out of the 
hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, 
in holiness and righteousness before him, all the 
days of our life." Luke I : 74. The subjects of 
this kingdom are to be separate from the world. 
"What agreement hath the temple of God with 
idols ? for ye are the temple of the living God ; as 
God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in 



THE KINGDOM. 57 

them ; and I will be their God, and they shall be 
my people. Wherefore come out from among 
them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and 
touch not the unclean thing ; and I will receive 
you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be 
my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." 
2 Cor. 6: 16-18. "Christ pleased not himself." 
" He came to do the Father's will, and to finish his 
work." His prayer ever was, "Thy will be done," 
and he gave the same prayer to his disciples. He 
is an example to his people. He says, "for their 
sakes I sanctify myself that they also might 
be sanctified through the truth," John 17 : 19, 
and prayed, " Sanctify them through thy truth." 
Christ and his apostles drew their meaning of the 
word sanctify from the Old Testament, which is not 
absolute moral purity, but a setting apart for a 
holy purpose. " Sanctify yourselves to the Lord." 
The priests, the temple, and the vessels of service 
were sanctified or set apart for sacred service. Paul 
addresses his epistle, " Unto the Church of God, 
which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in 
Christ Jesus, called to be saints." And Jude ad- 
dressed his epistle " to them that are sanctified by 
God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and 
called." This brings the disciples into a most 
endearing relation to Christ, for whom and by 
whom this setting apart of themselves takes place. 
" For both he that sanctifieth and they who are 



58 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not 
ashamed to call them brethren." Paul gives the 
standard of consecration in such words as these : 
" Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever 
ye do, do all to the glory of God." " Ye have 
received of us how ye ought to walk and please 
God." "For ye are bought with a price, therefore 
glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are 
God's." " But in a great house there are not only 
vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and 
of earth ; and some to honor and some to dishonor. 
If a man, therefore, purge himself of these, he 
shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet 
for the master's use, and prepared unto every 
good work." 

Paul's unceasing prayer for his Colossian breth- 
ren was " that they might be filled with a knowl- 
edge of Christ's will, in all wisdom and spiritual 
understanding ; that they might walk worthy of 
the Lord unto all pleasing ; being fruitful in every 
good work, and increasing in the knowledge of 
God ; strengthened with all might, according to his 
glorious power." Paul, addressing the Christians 
at Rome, having discussed the great doctrines of 
redemption, says, " I beseech you, therefore, breth- 
ren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your 
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, 
which is your reasonable service. And be not con- 
formed to this world ; but be ye transformed by 



THE KINGDOM. 59 

the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what 
is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of 
God." These words are the embodiment of the 
burnt offering of the Old Testament economy, 
which, we have said, signifies entire sanctification, 
in the sense of consecration. This expresses the 
normal position of the will of a true subject of the 
kingdom of Christ. The loyal subject of the king- 
dom is, by a continued act of the will, to keep 
himself on the altar, not a dead, but a living sacri- 
fice, seeking to "bring into captivity every thought 
to the obedience of Chist," looking to Him who 
has said, " My grace is sufficient for you." The 
prayer of Epaphras, for the Colossian brethren, 
was, that they might " stand perfect and complete 
in all the will of God." 

The point to be emphasized in these passages 
quoted is the consecrated position of the will, from 
the very time of taking the oath of allegiance to 
Christ's kingdom. 

Here we may inquire what will be the legitimate 
religious experience of conforming to the gospel 
standard of faith and obedience ? Jeremiah saw it 
when he saw in vision the old covenant removed 
and the covenant of the kingdom taking its place. 
" But this shall be the covenant that I will make 
with the house of Israel : after those days saith 
the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, 
and write it in their hearts ; and I will be their 



60 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

God, and they shall be my people. And they 
shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and 
every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, 
for they shall all know me, from the least of them 
unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord ; for I 
will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember 
their sin no more." Jer. 31 : 33, 34. Every one in 
the kingdom shall know the Lord by soul experi- 
ence. Their past sin shall not interrupt their 
communion with God. Jesus said, "The light of 
the body is the eye ; if therefore thine eye be 
single, thy whole body shall be full of light." Light 
and life is the result of singleness of service to 
Christ. 

There will be abounding peace through the 
indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul. Jesus 
said, "The Father hath not left me alone ; for I do 
always those things which please him." Nor will 
Christ leave his people alone when they do those 
things which please him. " If ye love me, keep 
my commandments. And I will pray the Father, 
and he shall give you another Comforter, that he 
may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of 
truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it 
seeth him not, neither knoweth him : but ye 
know him ; for he dwelleth with you and shall be 
in you." I will not leave you comfortless ; I will 
come to you. " If any man love me, he will keep my 
words ; and my Father will love him, and we will 



THE KINGDOM. 6 1 

come unto him, and make our abode with him." 
" Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto 
you ; not as the world giveth, give I unto you." 
John 14. " These things have I spoken unto 
you, that in me ye might have peace." Paul 
exhorts, " Be careful for nothing ; but in every- 
thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiv. 
ing, let your requests be made known unto God, 
and the peace of God, which passeth all under- 
standing, shall keep your hearts and minds 
through Christ Jesus." Phil. 4 : 6. The peace, 
which Christ has by virtue of the harmoni- 
ous relation which existed between him and the 
Father, will be given to the disciples. Not peace 
only, but love and joy also. " If ye keep my com- 
mandments, ye shall abide in my love ; even as I 
have kept my Father's commandments and abide 
in his love. These things have I spoken unto 
you, that my joy might remain in you, and that 
your joy might be full."- John 15 : 10, 11. And 
the promise of Jesus is, "Ask and ye shall receive, 
that your joy may be full." This fulness of Christ's 
joy is very much like heaven itself. Paul declares 
that " the kingdom of God is not meat and drink ; 
but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
Spirit " ; and his prayer for the Roman Christians 
was, " Now the God of hope fill you with all joy 
and peace in believing, that ye may abound in 
hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit." Rom. 



02 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

15:13. We read of the early disciples praying 
" and being filled with the Holy Spirit," and that 
they, "walking in the fear of the Lord, and in 
the comfort of the Holy Spirit, were multiplied." 
Through the regenerating and indwelling power of 
the Holy Spirit, we "are raised up and made to sit 
in heavenly places in Christ jesus." Through the 
indwelling of the Holy Spirit is given to us the 
spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father, 
having the precious consciousness that God is our 
kind, loving, heavenly Father. And Paul exhorts 
not to " grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we 
are sealed unto the day of redemption." This 
communion of the Spirit is a participation of 
heavenly joy, and is what John means when he 
says, " truly our fellowship is with the Father, and 
with his Son, Jesus Christ." Paul attempts to 
express the joys which belong to the kingdom in 
this world, in his prayer for his Ephesian brethren, 
" That God would grant you, according to the 
riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might 
by his Spirit in the inner man : that Christ may 
dwell in your hearts by faith ; that ye, being 
rooted and grounded in love, may be able, to com- 
prehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and 
length, and depth, and height ; and to know the 
love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye 
might be filled with all the fulness of God." All 
needed aid will be given, for Paul says that " God 



THE KINGDOM. 63 

is able to make all grace abound toward you ; that 
ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may 
abound to every good work." The church at 
Ephesus was admonished, because it had left its 
" first love." It had fallen from the holy com- 
munion it once had with God. To the church of 
Laodicea, the remedy is given for their wretched 
condition. " Behold, I stand at the door and 
knock : if any man hear my voice, and open the 
door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, 
and he with me." The experience set forth in 
the passages quoted is a participation of the joys 
of heaven. It is to walk with the king and breathe 
the atmosphere of the kingdom. It is not for the 
few more favored only, but belongs to the com- 
mon salvation. " Whosoever will, let him take 
the water of life freely." 

This brings us to the oneness of the kingdom 
here and hereafter. The author of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews expresses this oneness when he says, 
" But ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the 
City of the Living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, 
and to an innumerable company of angels. To 
the general assembly and church of the first-born 
which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge 
of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 
and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, 
and to the blood of sprinkling thatspeaketh better 
things than that of Abel." They have already 



64 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

come to the kingdom. The Saviour taught the 
disciples to pray,-" Thy Kingdom come: thy will 
be done in earth as it is in Heaven." There is 
no more reason why we should do the will of the 
King in heaven than upon earth. True loyalty 
in the one place is loyalty in the other. The 
prime principles which belong to the one belong 
to the other. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart," and do all with a single 
eye to his glory, is an eternal principle. And abso- 
lute obedience in will and purpose belongs just as 
much to the kingdom on this side of the death-line 
as on the other. The failure to render this, for 
which we too often apologize, is because of human 
weakness and sinfulness. It does not show that 
the kingdom is one thing here, and quite another 
there. Christ requires that the will should be just 
as submissive here as there. The likeness of the 
joys show also the oneness of the kingdom. The 
contemplation of God's glory in the works of crea- 
tion and providence, communion with God, the 
fellowship of the Spirit, knowledge of Christ, and 
the song of redemption, are the essential joys in 
heaven ; no less so are they here. Death on the 
physical side of man's nature is an enemy,; on the 
spiritual side it is but a rill easily crossed, when 
the voice of the King is heard saying, Come up 
higher. 

A right apprehension of the oneness of the 



THE KINGDOM. 65 

kingdom would revolutionize the Church. It 
would serve to lead Christians " to cleanse them- 
selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, 
perfecting holiness in the fear of God," and to be 
more active in bringing others into the kingdom. 
It would show the rocky-ground hearers, and those 
who dwell among thorns, where the cares of the 
world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the 
word that it becomes unfruitful, that they have no 
ground of hope to share the blessings of the king- 
dom hereafter, as they have so little enjoyment in 
them here. It would revolutionize the worship of 
many a congregation, making it more Pauline, 
" speaking to themselves and to each other, in 
psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing 
and making melody in their hearts to the Lord. 
Giving thanks always, for all things, unto God and 
the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
The song of redemption would resound from 
hearts filled with spiritual life. 

Another result would be, that many who are now 
floating on the sea of doubt, with no hope for an 
anchor, because the " lower lights " are not burn- 
ing, would be led to see the power and worth of 
religion, and would seek refuge in the kingdom. 
A correct apprehension of the oneness of the 
kingdom, here and hereafter, would greatly assist 
to understand what is called the coming of 
Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the judg- 
5 



66 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

ment. Modern theology has relegated these to 
the end of the Gospel age, to take place either 
simultaneously, or a thousand years intervening. 
Whether correctly or incorrectly, we invite the 
prayerful attention of the reader in the following 
chapters. 



THE PAROUSIA. 67 



CHAPTER III. 



THE PAROUSIA. 



The great difference of opinion concerning es- 
chatology among theologians, and indeed among 
Christians generally, affords a strong presumption 
that the true exegesis of Scripture concerning it is 
not well settled. Some believe in a pre-millennium, 
others in a post-millennium, and others still in no 
millennium at all. Some believe that the world will 
wax worse and worse, till God shall close the scenes 
by the destruction of the earth and the heavens. 

Statement of the Case. 

We take the ground that the Parousia, or what 
is commonly called the second coming of Christ, 
is not a bodily appearing of Christ at the close of 
the Gospel age, but rather the characteristic of the 
whole Gospel age, Christ being spiritually present 
as King, Priest, and Judge ; that there was a re- 
markable manifestation of this at the destruction 
of Jerusalem ; that what is often called in the New 
Testament " Christ's coming" finds its fulfilment 
in that event ; that man receives his spiritual 
body at natural death, or when he puts off this 



68 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

earthly tabernacle; that the final judgment, so far 
as this world is concerned, takes place at the death 
of the individual, when man's probation closes, and 
his eternal destiny is fixed either among the right- 
eous in heaven or the wicked in hell. 

Before proceeding in the discussion, it may be 
helpful to observe that there should be allowed 
an elasticity and variety of meaning to the words 
coming of Christ, resurrection, judgment, and day, 
the same as is accorded to other words, according 
to the requirement of the context. To refer the 
"coming of Christ and the appearing of Christ " to 
a bodily appearing at the end of the world, as is so 
commonly done, is manifestly too narrow and in- 
correct, as a careful comparison of these phrases 
will show. 

So the word resurrection, so commonly made to 
mean a gathering up of a material body from the 
grave. This is manifestly too limited a definition 
of the word. The phrase, " the resurrection of the 
body," is not found in the New Testament. " Res- 
urrection of the dead," is frequent, which may mean 
a very different thing from the resurrection of a 
material body from the grave. The Parousia dis- 
pensation is a dispensation of resurrection. Christ 
said, " I am the resurrection and the life." 

To refer the phrase, "the day of judgment," to 
a judgment which God will pronounce on the world 
at a given specified day at the end of the world, is 



THE PAROUSIA. 69 

manifestly too restricted to be in harmony with 
the New Testament teaching. The word day is 
sometimes used to denote special manifestations 
of God's power in blessings or punishments. The 
phrase, "the day of the Lord," occurs frequently in 
the Old Testament, referring to no one fixed day, 
but to times when God would deal with men ac- 
cording to their sins. "For the day of the Lord 
of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and 
lofty." " Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is at 
hand." "Behold the day of the Lord cometh." 
These find their fulfilment in the judgments threat- 
ened against Babylon. " Alas for the day, for the 
day of the Lord is at hand." "Behold the day of 
the Lord cometh." These expressions refer to 
judgments threatened upon ancient Israel. Catch- 
ing the spirit of the phraseology in the Old Tes- 
tament, we can better understand the phrases of 
the New, such as the " day of God," " in the day 
of the Lord," "in the day of Christ," "in the day 
of judgment," "the great day," " in that day," "day 
of visitation," "last 'day," and the like, referring to 
no one specified day, but to times and seasons 
when God would manifest himself to them, calling 
them to an account. 

It must also be borne in mind that the apostles 
and early disciples lived in expectation of some re- 
markable event soon to take place. It is spoken 
of as the "day of the Lord," the "day of Christ." 



JO PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

Paul encourages the disciples at Thessalonica not 
to be soon shaken in mind or troubled " as that 
the day of the Lord is at hand," and assures them 
that that "day will not come except there come a 
falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed 
the son of perdition." Peter warns the disciples then 
living to be ready, " for the day of the Lord will 
come as a thief." It is unreasonable to believe that 
the writers of the New Testament were deceived, 
and expected Christ soon to come from heaven, 
raise the dead and judge the world. They did ex- 
pect that the day of the Lord was close at hand. 
In Paul's salutation to the Corinthians, he says, 
" Maranatha," meaning, "Our Lord cometh." I 
Cor. 16 : 22. And to the Philippians 4: 5, "The 
Lord is at hand." Subsequent events showed that 
the "day of the Lord" meant the ending of the 
old economy, by the destruction of Jerusalem with 
its temple and temple worship. 

In order to a right understanding of the word 
Parousia, translated coming in the common version, 
but translated " presence " in the Canterbury ver- 
sion as placed in the margin, we must notice how 
the Old and New Testament dispensations overlap 
each other. 

From the nature of the case it was impossible 
that the one should suddenly terminate and the 
other commence in all its completeness. Luke 
tells us that "the law and the prophets were until 



THE PAROUSIA. 7 I 

John ; since that time the kingdom of God is 
preached." This is the beginning of the new dis- 
pensation. It was gradually developed as Christ 
performed his miracles, taught his precepts and 
doctrines, gave his ordinances, and then gave him- 
self' on the cross as the fulfilment of the typical 
sacrifices of the Old Testament. Then for forty 
years the two dispensations seem to run parallel. 
The Jews kept up the old order of things in their 
ceremonies, sacrifices, and annual festivals. The 
Christians kept up the new order of things as 
instituted by Christ, and to some extent the old. 
Shall this continue ? Evidently not. Christ gave 
his disciples to understand that in power he would 
break up the old dispensation, which he did at the 
destruction of Jerusalem, the burning of the tem- 
ple, and the perishing of a million and a quarter of 
Jews in the year A. D. 70 ; when, according to 
the prediction of Daniel, the sacrifices were taken 
away. The order of Christ's kingdom was now 
fully established. 

Again, if the patriarchal and Mosaic institu- 
tions, which were but preparatory to Christ's 
kingdom, continued for four thousand years, may 
we not reasonably expect that the kingdom itself 
will be something superlatively grand in its nature, 
duration, and conquest ? The types and shadows 
in the Old Testament denote realities in the New. 
The cloud about the tabernacle was the symbol of 



*J2 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

the divine presence. It was to this cloud that 
Moses went to consult with the Lord. The She- 
kinah over the mercy seat, in the holy of holies, 
was the symbol of the divine presence, and a type 
of the reality of Christ's presence in the church, 
which is his spiritual temple. The Parousia ex- 
presses what Christ said to his disciples when he 
gave them their commission, " Lo, I am with you 
always, even unto the end of the world." Also 
what he said to the disciples on the memorable 
night of the betrayal : " At that day ye shall know 
that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in 
you. He that hath my commandments and keepeth 
them, he it is that loveth me ; and he that loveth me 
shall be loved of my Father ; and I will love him, and 
will manifest myself to him." A Christian fully 
complying with these conditions will know by a 
personal experience the meaning of the Parousia : 
" I will not leave you comfortless ; I will come to 
you." The distinguishing feature of the Gospel 
dispensation is the Parousia : Christ present with 
.his people ; present as king of saints, as high priest, 
to whom each may come with his sacrifice as really 
as one who had sinned could come with his sacri- 
fice to the high priest at the Jewish altar ; present 
as Head of the church to guide and comfort ; pres- 
ent to judge now and in all coming time. When 
Christ was on earth, clothed in his physical body, 
he was in a sense confined to locality. Now he is 



THE PAROUSIA. J ?> 

the omnipresent God, and manifests himself to 
the world by blessings and judgments. He is the 
one " who holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, 
and who walketh in the midst of the seven golden 
candlesticks." 

Let us examine the Greek word Parousia. It is 
composed of the two words, para and eimi. Prof. 
Robinson, in his Greek Lexicon of the New Testa- 
ment, gives the meaning of the preposition para, 
"beside, near by." 

The preposition is devoid of the idea of motion ; 
rest, near by, is the legitimate idea of the word. 
The word eimi is our neuter verb to be, to exist. 
From these two words is derived the noun Pa- 
rousia, almost uniformly translated coming in the 
King James version, as if identical with the word 
erkomai, meaning, / come. Such a translation is 
most evidently incorrect and misleading in es- 
chatology. In the Canterbury version, the word is 
translated coming, but the real meaning, presence, 
is uniformly put in the margin. Three times it 
is correctly translated presence. Presence is the 
leading meaning, and should have been put in the 
text. There may be a secondary, or derived mean- 
ing of motion sometimes in the word. We find the 
word translated correctly in two places in the au- 
thorized version. In 2 Cor. 10 : 10, " For his let- 
ters, say they, are weighty and powerful ; but his 
bodily presence (parousia) is weak, and his speech 



74 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

contemptible." Also in Phil. 2: 12, "Wherefore, 
my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in 
my presence (parousia) only, but now much more 
in my absence {apousia), work out your own salva- 
tion with fear and trembling." Also in Phil. 1 : 26, 
in the revised version. These passages are very 
significant of the meaning of the word denoting 
presence and not motion. Some passages claim 
our attention as prophetic of Christ's coming to be 
present in power, to put an end to the Jewish 
economy. He said to the disciples, " When they 
persecute you in this city, flee ye into another ; 
for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone 
over the cities of Israel till the Son of man be 
come." Matt. 10 : 23. Indicating that though he 
might leave them for a time, yet the time should 
not be far distant when he would reveal himself 
in their behalf. When the Saviour was in the re- 
gion of Cesarea Philippi, to encourage the disciples 
in self-denial and stability amid persecution, he 
said to them : " Whosoever will save his life shall 
lose it ; and whosoever will lose his life for my 
sake, shall find it ; for what is a man profited, if he 
shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ; 
or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? 
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of the 
Father, with his angels : and then shall he reward 
every man according to his works. Verily, I say 
unto you, there be some standing here, which shall 



THE PAROUSIA. 75 

not taste of death, till they see the Son of man 
coming in his kingdom." Matt. 16 : 26-28. Mark 
records the same discourse thus, "Whosoever there- 
fore shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in 
this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also 
shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh 
in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels. 
And he said unto them, verily, I say unto you, that 
there be some of them that stand here, which shall 
not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom 
of God come with power." Mark 8: 38; 9:1. 
Luke gives his version of it in the following words : 
" For whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of 
my words, of him shall the Son of man be 
ashamed when he shall come in his own glory, and 
in his Father's, and of the holy angels. But I tell 
you of a truth, there be some standing here, which 
shall not taste of death till they see the king- 
dom of God." Luke 9 : 26, 27. Note here three 
things : First, the coming of Christ in the power 
and glory of the Father, with the holy angels ; 
second, the establishment of the kingdom of God 
with power; third, that this should take place 
while some standing there should yet be living. 
Such language would cause the disciples to live in 
expectation of these events. 

We turn now to the place where the word pa- 
ronsia is first used in the New Testament, Matt. 
24 : 3, 27, 37, 39. Read carefully Matt. 24, Mark 13, 



j6 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

Luke 21, bearing in mind that they are a record of 
the same events by the three different evangelists. 
It was on the third day of the last Passover week ; 
Jesus had uttered his last warnings to the Jews 
in the temple. As he passed out of the temple, 
"one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see 
what manner of stones and what buildings are 
here ! And Jesus, answering, said unto him, Seest 
thou these great buildings ? there shall not be left 
one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown 
down." 

This greatly astonished the disciples, and four 
of them, Peter, James, John, and Andrew, follow 
him directly to the Mount of Olives, and ask him 
about it, saying, " Tell us when shall these things 
be ? and what shall be the sign of thy coming 
(fiarousia), and of the end of the age ? " The 
word kosmos is the word used to denote the earth, 
this lower world, as the abode of man, but (eon is 
here used, which means the duration or flow of 
time, and may be applied to a person's lifetime, 
or any period, as the Jewish age. The disciples 
doubtless had in mind the Jewish age. Mark and 
Luke record the question thus : " Tell us, when 
shall these things be ? and what shall be the sign 
when all these things shall be fulfilled ? " They 
do not use the word parousia, and yet, doubtless, 
all three evangelists intend to record the same ques- 
tions in substance. The circumstances and form 



THE PAROUSIA. JJ 

of the questions show that they inquired concern- 
ing the events which clustered about the destruc- 
tion of the temple. 

It is not a Tittle absurd to think that the dis- 
ciples should ask Jesus about the closing up of the 
new dispensation and the end of the world, when, 
as yet, the old one had not closed. Nor had he 
intimated, so far as recorded, anything about the 
end of the world. But he had said that he would 
come in power to put an end to the Jewish dispensa- 
tion, and to fully inaugurate his kingdom. Christ 
and his disciples were yet struggling to get a foot- 
hold for the new dispensation, and the great strug- 
gle was yet to come against Jewish prejudice and 
custom, and against Jewish and pagan persecu- 
tion, before the new order of things should be fully 
inaugurated. 

The foundation stone upon which the kingdom 
of God was to be built was yet to be laid in the 
death of Christ, The severest of the birth-pangs 
of the kingdom were yet to be endured. Why, 
then, again we ask, should the disciples ask about 
the end of the world ? The answer that Christ 
gave shows that the events inquired of were soon 
to take place. He warns them first against being 
deceived, because many shall come, " Saying, I am 
Christ ; and shall deceive many." History in- 
forms us that there were many in those days who 
pretended to be Christ. He informed them that 



7$ PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

the days preceding the event should be days of 
great commotion. " Nation shall rise against na- 
tion," " they should hear of wars and rumors of 
wars," and famine and pestilence and earthquakes. 
A few years before the destruction of Jerusalem, 
when Gessius Florus was governor in Palestine, 
the Jews were aroused to rebellion against the 
Roman power. Vespasian was sent with a Roman 
army to quell the rebellion. Many of the Jews 
were put to death. Just the state of things that 
Christ foretold actually existed in Palestine. " All 
these are the beginning of sorrows," "but the end 
is not yet." 

Then Christ forewarns them of the persecutions 
they must endure. " Then shall they deliver you 
up to be afflicted, and shall kill you ; and ye shall 
be hated of all nations for my name's sake." This 
also describes the exact state of things which ex- 
isted under the Neronian persecution, A. D. 64- 
68. To avert from himself the odium of burning 
Rome, Nero charged it upon the Christians, and 
every effort was made to make them a hated and 
detested people. Persecution raged terribly at 
Rome, and extended into the provinces. To en- 
courage them to fidelity, Christ said, "There shall 
not a hair of your head perish. In your patience 
possess ye your souls." " But he that shall endure 
unto the end, the same shall be saved." Christ also 
said to them, " And this gospel of the kingdom 



THE PAROUSIA. 79 

shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto 
all nations ; and then shall the end come." 

Does this mean that as soon as the gospel is 
proclaimed to the last nation on earth, then the 
end of the world shall come ? We had supposed 
that the gospel was for the gathering in of the na- 
tions into the kingdom, and not as soon as the 
nations all hear that there is a Christ, they must 
be cut off. It means, rather, that while the Jews, 
God's chosen people, had been scattered 'among all 
nations, the gospel should be preached among all 
nations, that the Jews might have the offer of 
salvation, as a witness of Christ's fidelity to " his 
own," before he should reject them as a nation 
in the destruction of their temple and city. 

The Roman army was years in making its way 
through the rebellious provinces, subduing them, 
and encamping about Jerusalem. Christ would 
save his people from the calamities which were to 
overwhelm the Jewish nation, so he utters another 
warning to them : " When ye, therefore, shall see 
the abomination spoken of by Daniel, the prophet, 
stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him 
understand), then let them which be in Judea flee 
into the mountains ; let him who is on the house-top 
not come down to take anything out of his house ; 
neither let him who is in the field return back to 
take his clothes." The abomination spoken of is 
the Roman army. The disciples were to flee be- 



So PROBLEMS in theology. 

fore it. The facts of history are that the disciples 
took refuge in Pella, in Perea, and were saved 
from the destruction which overtook the unbeliev- 
ing Jews. Christ foretells the great suffering that 
will be endured. " But woe unto them that are 
with child, and to them that give suck, in those 
days ! And pray ye that your flight be not in the 
winter. For in those days shall be affliction, such 
as was not from the beginning of the creation 
which God created unto this time, neither shall 
be." Christ again warns them not to follow 
them who shall say, " Lo, here is Christ ! or, Lo, 
he is there ! " lest they should be deceived and 
perish. He tells them, too, of the suddenness in 
which Jerusalem should be destroyed : " For as the 
lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth 
unto the west ; so also shall the coming (fiarousia) 
of the Son of man be. For wheresover the car- 
cass is, there will the eagles be gathered together." 
Jerusalem is the carcass, the Roman army the 
eagles. Then comes a description of the final 
catastrophe : " And there shall be signs in the 
sun, and in the moon, and in the stars ; and upon 
the earth distress of nations, with perplexity ; the 
sea and the waves roaring ; men's hearts failing 
them for fear, and for looking after those things 
which are coming on the earth ; for the powers 
of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they 
see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with power 



THE PAROUSIA. 8 1 

and great glory. And when these things begin 
to come to pass, then look up and lift up your 
heads, for your redemption draweth nigh." The 
significance of the event described in this graphic 
language is not fully appreciated in our time. The 
winding up of that system of religion which had 
called the Jews to Jerusalem, year after year, for 
fifteen centuries, the removal of obstacles which 
were greatly impeding the progress of the gospel, 
the full inauguration of the kingdom of God on 
the earth, was an event of no small import. The 
sentence, " And then shall they see the Son of man, 
coming in a cloud (' in the clouds of heaven,' Matt.) 
with power and great glory," is often quoted to 
prove the second coming of Christ at the end of the 
world, or end of the gospel age. Bat a careful 
examination of the language will show that this is 
foreign to the meaning of the whole passage. 
Matthew says, " Immediately after the tribulation 
of those days," this event should take place. 
Mark says, " In those days, after that tribulation." 
Immediately following the passage quoted is re- 
corded the parable of the fig-tree, to impress 
the minds of the disciples that all the events were 
near at hand, "even at the doors." "Behold the 
fig-tree, and all the trees ; when they now shoot 
forth ye see and know of your own selves that 
summer is now nigh at hand." " So likewise ye, 
when ye see these things come to pass, know ye 



82 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily, 
I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away 
till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass 
away, but my words shall not pass away." Matthew 
also says, " Verily I say unto you, this generation 
shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." 
And Mark records it, " Verily I say unto you, That 
this generation shall not pass, till all these things 
be done." No language could make it more def- 
inite that all the things spoken of should come to 
pass while some of that generation would still be 
living. Christ's " coming in the clouds of heaven, 
with power and great glory," is included in the "all 
things." Then is given another admonition to 
watch : " For as in the days before the flood they 
were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in 
marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the 
ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took 
them all away ; so shall also the coming (parotcsia) 
of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the 
field ; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 
Two women shall be grinding at the mill ; the one 
shall be taken, and the other left. Watch, there- 
fore : for ye know not what hour your Lord doth 
come." "Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, 
that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these 
things that shall come to pass, and to stand before 
the Son of man." There was need of this charge 
to watch, lest the disciples should remain among 



THE PAROUSIA. 83 

the unbelieving Jews, and suffer the same calami- 
ties which overtook them in the siege and destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem. The Saviour having shown 
the disciples of the destruction of the temple, and 
of the end of the old economy, discourses to them 
concerning the principles of the kingdom, as 
recorded in Matt. 25: "Then shall the kingdom 
of heaven be likened," etc. Note that in Matt. 25 : 
13, the phrase "wherein the Son of Man cometh " 
is wanting in the Canterbury version, and also that 
of the American Bible Union. 

May not the meaning of the phrase " Christ 
coming in the clouds of heaven," as used in Matt. 
24, and so definitely fixed as referring to the dis- 
solving of the old economy, be a key with which 
to unlock the meaning of the like phrases in other 
parts of the New Testament ? When Jesus, after 
his betrayal, was arrayed before the council, by 
night, Caiaphas, the high priest, said to him, "I 
adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us 
whether thou be the Christ the Son of God." 
Jesus sairti unto him, "Thou hast said ; neverthe- 
less I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son 
of man sitting on the right hand of power, and 
coming in the clouds of heaven." Matt. 26:64. 
There is very little pertinency in the answer if we 
make Christ mean that he will come in a distant 
future when Caiaphas and his associates will have 
been dead for centuries ; but there is force if he 



84 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

means that he will soon come in power to destroy 
the very altars and temple where Caiaphas officiated, 
as he did at the destruction of Jerusalem. And 
this is most evidently the meaning, for he says, " Ye 
shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand 
of power," — something to take place in that gen- 
eration. 

Christ, after his resurrection, met seven of his 
disciples at the Sea of Galilee. Peter was very soli- 
citous about what John should do. Christ rebuked 
Peter, saying, " If I will that he tarry till I come, 
what is that to thee ? Follow thou me." It is 
supposed that John is the only one of .the twelve 
apostles who did live till after the destruction of 
Jerusalem. Christ undoubtedly refers to what he 
had taught the disciples of his "coming in the 
clouds of heaven with power and great glory," as 
fulfilled in A. D. 70. 

Let us here examine other passages in the New 
Testament, which in the Greek have the word 
parousia, using the key of Matt. 24, and having in 
mind that the word is translated presence inva- 
riably in the Canterbury version as placed in the 
margin. In 1 Cor. 16: 17, we read, "I am glad of 
the coming (parousia) of Stephanas, Fortunatas, 
and Achaicus." I apprehend that it was not the 
journey thither of these good brethren that made 
Paul glad, but their presence after they had arrived, 
that made him so. Paul says in 2 Cor. 7:6," Never- 



THE PAROUSIA. 85 

theless God comforted us by the coming {parousia) 
of Titus." The comfort was by the presence of 
Titus, and not the journey. In Phil. 1 : 26, Paul, 
a prisoner at Rome, expressed his hope that the 
rejoicing of the Philippian brethren might be more 
abundant in Jesus Christ by his coming {parousia) 
to them again. It was his presence, not the jour- 
ney thither, that would conduce to their rejoicing. 
Paul uses this word in 1 Cor. 15 : 23 : " But every 
man in his own order, Christ the first fruits ; after- 
ward, they that are Christ at his coming" (in his 
parousia). A careful examination of the first half 
of the chapter will show that the word resurrection 
means a blessed future life, rather than a particular 
manner and form of the resurrection of the body. 
Paul's argument requires it. Robinson, in his 
Greek Lexicon, defines ev, which so definitely 
means in, first of place with its subdivisions, then 
second of time, (a) " a definite point or period in 
which anything takes place ; (b) of time how 
long, i. e., a space or period in which anything 
takes place." This we think is the meaning in 
this passage ; those that are his during his parousia 
or personal presence in the church in the Gospel 
age. In 1 Thes. 2 : 19, we read, " For what is our 
hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even 
ye, before our Lord Jesus at his coming " (in his 
parousia) ? Paul writes to the Thessalonian Chris- 
tians to comfort and strengthen them amid perse- 



S6 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

cutions. He tells them that they are his hope, joy, 
and crown of rejoicing when Christ shall manifest 
himself present in his kingdom, an event that would 
take place during their lifetime as we have seen 
in Matt. 24. 

1 Thes. 3:13, the word is again used: "And 
the Lord make you to increase and abound in love, 
one toward another, and toward all men, even as 
we do toward you. To the end he may establish 
your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, 
even our Father, at the coming {parousia) of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, with all his saints." There is 
something incompatible in the argument, if Paul, 
in the use of parousia, refers to an event two or 
ten thousand years hence. Their hearts were to 
be established for something which would take 
place in their lifetime. This is shown in the next 
chapter, 4:15: " For this we say unto you by the 
word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and 
remain unto the coming (eis tan parousian) of the 
Lord, shall not prevent (precede) them which are 
asleep." Paul speaks here by the word of the 
Lord. Christ had uttered in word what Paul 
asserts. He doubtless refers to what Christ had 
said, as recorded in the twenty-fourth of Matthew. 
Christ said it should take place in that generation. 
Paul speaks of some who would be " alive and 
remain when the parousia should take place.' 
Some of them now living, "we who are alive.' 



THE PAROUSIA. 8 J 

This passage has reference to the time when 
Christ would appear in power, to put an end to 
the old dispensation, in the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem and the temple, and fully inaugurate the king- 
dom in which the personal, living, spiritual pres- 
ence of Christ would be a grand characteristic. 
Paul goes on, in the next chapter, to show that the 
event would take place in the lifetime of some of 
those then living. " But of the times and sea- 
sons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto 
you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day 
of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. 
For when they shall say, Peace and safety ; then 
sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail 
upon a woman with child ; and they shall not 
escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, 
that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye 
are the children of light, and the children of the 
day ; we are not of the night, nor of the darkness. 
Therefore, let us not sleep as do others ; but let 
us watch and be sober." 5:1-6. This language 
accords perfectly with what Christ said of the 
parousia, as recorded in Matt. 24, Mark 13, 
Luke 21 : "Ye know perfectly." Christ had told 
them so. Paul most clearly intimates that some 
then living would be overtaken and overwhelmed 
in that event, the "children of darkness," but the 
" children of light " would escape. We have the 
word again, in verse 23 of this chapter: "And 



SS PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

the very God of peace sanctify you wholly ; and 
I pray God your whole soul and spirit and body be 
preserved blameless unto the coming {parousia) of 
our Lord Jesus Christ." Here the translation is 
as if the word parousia were in the accusative 
case, after eis or pros, whereas it is in the dative 
after en or in 9 in or at the parousia. Paul under- 
stood truth too well to pray that their bodies might 
be preserved two thousand years, which have 
nearly expired since the prayer was offered, if this 
refers to a second advent in the yet future. He 
did pray that in those terrible scenes which some 
of them then living would pass through, in the 
Jewish wars and the destruction of Jerusalem, 
they might be preserved, spirit, soul, and body, and 
that, as subjects of the parousia dispensation, they 
might not be discouraged and overcome by perse- 
cution. 

Pass now to 2 Thes. 2 : I, 8, 9, where parousia 
is three times used : " Now we beseech you, 
brethren, touching the coming {parousia) of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together 
unto him ; to the end that ye be not quickly shaken 
from your mind ; nor yet be troubled, either by 
spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, 
as that the day of the Lord is just at hand ; let 
no man beguile you in anywise ; for it will not be, 
except the falling away come first, and the man 
of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that 



THE PAROUSIA. 89 

opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is 
called God, or that is worshipped ; so that he 
sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth 
as God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet 
with you, I told you these things ? and now ye 
know that which restraineth, to the end that he 
may be revealed in his own season. For the 
mystery of lawlessness doth already work ; only 
there is one that restraineth now, until he be 
taken out of the way. And then shall be revealed 
the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay 
with the breath of his mouth, and bring to nought 
by the manifestation of his coming {parousia), even 
he whose coming (parousia) is, according to the 
working of Satan, with all power and signs and 
lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteous- 
ness for them that perish." Christ had told the 
disciples on Mount Olivet about the parousia ("day 
of the Lord," it is called in this passage quoted), 
and Paul had told the Thessalonians about it while 
he was yet with them, and written about it in a pre- 
vious epistle, and they expected it was "just at 
hand." We cannot believe that Paul was so 
deceived as to think the end of the world was at 
hand. He did teach them that some event was 
close at hand. 

In his second epistle he teaches them that the 
event will not come until there is first a falling 
away, and the man of sin be revealed. The cause 



90 TROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

of the apostasy is a man, "the man of sin," "the' 
son of perdition." Had there been a man made to 
order for this prophetic passage, he could hardly 
have filled the bill better than Nero, the Roman 
emperor, whom many think is here meant. His 
character conforms well to the description given. 
He sought to be worshipped. "Thou August," 
" Nero the Apollo," " Eternal One," are some of 
the worshipful epithets given to him. One writer 
says, " Now, as a matter of fact, the persecution 
began in November, A. D. 64, and ended with 
his death in June, A. D. 68. That is as near as 
possible three years and a half." Another writer 
says that " he was hurled from his throne and died 
like a dog in the sewers of Rome." It is certain 
that he died suddenly and disgracefully. With his 
death, the first great persecution of the Christians 
ceased. (See Chapter VI., where Nero figures as 
the beast of the Apocalypse.) Under the severe 
persecutions there would naturally come "a falling 
away." False professors, the weak and unstable 
minded, the severely tried, would be likely to yield 
to the power of persecution under Nero, " whose 
presence is according to the working of Satan 
with all power and signs, and lying wonders, and 
with all deceit of unrighteousness." Closely fol- 
lowing this apostasy came the destruction of Jeru- 
salem and the end of the old economy. 

In James 5 : 7, 8, the wcrd is twice used: "Be 



THE PAROUSIA. 



91 



patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming (pa- 
rousid) of the Lord. Behold the husbandman 
waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being 
patient over it, until it receive the early and the 
latter rain. Be ye also patient ; stablish your 
hearts; for the coming of the Lord (parousia) is 
at hand." The writer is not delivering a general 
homily on Christian patience, but exhorting them 
to be patient under persecution, till the Lord shall 
appear for their deliverance. And he declares 
plainly that the event is " nigh at hand." If there 
is any force in the argument, it must refer to some- 
thing which was to take place in their lifetime. 
To exhort them to be patient, because Christ would 
come two or more thousand years after death had 
relieved them from their hardships, is not in ac- 
cordance with good sense. Besides, we cannot 
believe that James, under the inspiration of the 
Holy Spirit, either believed or would teach the 
disciples that an event was nigh at hand, which 
would not take place for two, and might not in ten 
thousand years. James might not have been one 
who listened to Christ's prophetic discourse on 
Mount Olivet, but the disciples who did listen must 
have told him, and he understood the parousia to 
be something which would take place in the life- 
time of some who heard it. It was nigh at hand. 
Peter was one of the four disciples who followed 
Christ to the Mount of Olives. He uses the word 



92 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

three times in his second epistle. He evidently 
does not write to instruct the disciples how the new 
dispensation was to be terminated, while as yet the 
old one was not yet fully abolished ; and while the 
disciples were struggling, amid the scoffs and per- 
secutions of the Jews and pagans, to establish the 
new one. In 2 Peter 1: 16, he says: "For we 
have not followed cunningly devised fables, when 
we made known to you the power and coming 
(parotisia) of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye- 
witnesses of his majesty." Peter, we think, does 
not speak here of a future advent, but something 
already past, as we see by the context, in which 
the presence of Christ was the power, the power 
of his presence. Peter in the following verses 
alludes to the scene of the transfiguration, as the 
time when this occurred. In 3:3, 4, we read, 
" Knowing this first that there shall come in the 
last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 
and saying, Where is the promise of his coming 
{paronsid)} for since the fathers fell asleep, all 
things continue as they were from the beginning 
of the creation." Does this mean, that when the 
gospel has gone along the centuries, from "con- 
quering and to conquer," and about fulfilled its 
mission, that there shall be scoffers who shall 
tauntingly say to the disciples, "Where is the 
promise of his coming " ? We do not so understand 
the promises, the power, and genius of the gospel. 



THE PAROUSIA. 93 

" The last days " are the last days of the Jewish 
economy. 

When Peter wrote this epistle, it was only about 
four years before the destruction of Jerusalem. 
The Jews were going along with all their rites, 
ceremonies, and festivals, now almost forty years 
since Christ made the promise to the disciples, and 
the Jews tauntingly say to them, "Where is the 
promise of the parous ia ?" Then Peter goes on 
to say, not how the earth and the heavens shall 
be dissolved, and new heavens and earth appear, 
but to describe in most vivid, figurative language 
what the Saviour uttered, as recorded in Matt. 
24 : 29 : " Immediately after the tribulation of 
those days shall the sun be darkened, and the 
moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall 
fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens 
shall be shaken," which most evidently refers to 
the destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 70, and with 
the destruction of that city, the closing up of the 
Jewish economy. In verse twelve we read, "Look- 
ing for and earnestly desiring the coming (parousia) 
of the day of God, by reason of which, the 
heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the 
elements shall melt with fervent heat." This was 
something they were looking for in their lifetime. 
Peter therefore exhorts them to " give diligence 
that they may be found in peace." The Jews un- 
derstood the meaning when their wars came, and 



94 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

in the siege and destruction of their city, when a 
million of the people perished. 

There is one more passage in which the word 
parousia is found. It is in the First Epistle of John. 
Before noticing this, we need to consider the rela- 
tive dates of John's writings. Not a little miscon- 
ception of the truth has been caused by reading 
the Scriptures on the same level, without regard 
to dates and events, and purpose of the writer ; 
also seeking to harmonize passages of Scripture, 
rather than to harmonize the fundamental doctrines 
and events around which the passages crystallize. 
Let us look at the relative dates of some of the 
writings of the New Testament, confining ourselves 
to the internal evidence. Matthew, Mark, and 
Luke, who wrote before the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, speak of that signal event which put an end 
to the Mosaic economy, the significance of which 
is hardly appreciated in our day. They deal with 
the facts and miracles, the external evidence which 
proves the gospel true. Their writings are the 
vessels which contain the water of life ; while 
John's gospel has been called the heart of Christ. 
It unfolds the deeper spirituality of the gospel, 
the proof of its truth from the inner life, the work- 
ing of sin upon the soul and its consequences, 
and the power of Christ to give spiritual life. 
" He that believeth on the Son hath everlast- 
ing life, and he that believeth not the Son shall 



THE PAROUSIA. 95 

not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on 
him." John 3 : 36. 

Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in the twenty-fourth, 
thirteenth, and twenty-first chapters, respectively, 
warn the disciples of the perilous times coming, 
" when they shall deliver you up to be afflicted, 
and shall kill you ; and ye shall be hated of all 
nations for my name's sake. And then shall 
many be offended, and shall betray one another, 
and shall hate one another. And many false 
prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many, and 
because iniquity shall abound, the love of many 
shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the 
end, the same shall be saved." John alone of the 
evangelists heard Christ's discourse on Olivet con- 
cerning the perils that would come upon them in 
the last days when Christ would judge the nation 
and put an end to the Jewish economy by the tragic 
destruction of their temple and city. 

It was, therefore, given to John to speak the 
words of warning and encouragement needful for 
the disciples. This he did in the wonderful vis- 
ions he had in the Isle of Patmos, as recorded 
in the Apocalypse, and addressed to the seven 
churches of Asia. He warns the disciples against 
the seductions of Satan, and the false doctrines 
which would lead many astray. To each of the 
seven churches he says, " to him that overcometh," 
and adds a signal blessing as a reward for their 



96 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

fidelity in the faith. Seven times is that phrase 
used, and seven different blessings are named as 
the crown of reward. We here assume the earlier 
date of the Apocalypse, written about the begin- 
ning of the Neronian persecution (See Chapter 
VI.) 

It is generally conceded that John wrote his 
gospel after the destruction of Jerusalem. This 
fully accounts for the absence in his gospel of 
those strong assertions in the other gospels, of 
Qirist's coming in power and great glory. But if 
Christ's coming in his bodily presence at the end 
of the world is meant in the other gospels, it is so 
connected with the whole gospel plan, that John's 
gospel would be incomplete and imperfect without 
it. This is seen, as John's gospel is the most 
complete embodiment of spiritual truth, adapted 
to all time, that we have. But its absence in his 
gospel goes to show that those vivid descriptions 
of the other evangelists have their fulfilment en- 
tirely in other events. 

As to the date of the First Epistle of John, the 
internal evidence favors that brief period of some 
two years between the close of the Neronian 
persecution and the destruction of Jerusalem. 
Nero died June 11, 68, and Jerusalem was de- 
stroyed A. D. 70, the temple being fired on the 
15 th of July, and the destruction of the city being 
consummated in the following September. It is 



THE PAROUSIA. 97 

not directly asserted in the epistle to whom it was 
written, but we think there is strong internal evi- 
dence that it was addressed to the same churches 
to which the Apocalypse had been. It would be 
natural for John to do so, and the language 
strongly indicates it. They had endured the per- 
secutions from Nero, but the end of the Jewish 
age, the full extent of the perilous times, had not 
quite come. John writes again to them, and 
urges them to abide in the faith, to hold on firmly 
a little longer. He unfolds to them more of 
the inner life and power of the gospel, those prin- 
ciples of religion which find root in love to God 
and to one another. Notice here the language in 
2: 12-14. "I write unto you, my little children, 
because your sins are forgiven you for his name's 
sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye know 
him who is from the beginning. I write unto you, 
young men, because ye have overcome the evil 
one. I wrote unto you, little children, because ye 
have known the Father. I wrote unto you, fathers, 
because ye have known him who is from the be- 
ginning. I wrote unto you, young men, because 
ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, 
and ye have overcome the evil one." In verse 21, 
also, " I wrote unto you, not because ye have not 
known the truth, but because ye know it." In 
verse 26, also, "these things I wrote unto you con- 
cerning them that would lead you astray." 
7 



9S PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

The word egrapsa (I wrote), used five times in 
this chapter, is in the aorist tense, and cannot cor- 
rectly be translated by a perfect tense, nor stand- 
ing as it does in the first part of the epistle, can it 
with any consistency be made to refer to the con- 
tents of the whole epistle. But if John refers to 
what he had said to them in the Apocalypse, the 
solution is natural and easy, In that he exhorts 
them to " overcome." Now he writes to them 
because they "have overcome the evil one." By 
the evil one, ton poneron, is not meant the devil, 
only as he is personated in Nero, the instigator of 
the persecutions. He is the same as the lawless 
one, " whose coming is according to the working 
of Satan with all power and signs and lying won- 
ders," of whom Paul speaks in 2 Thes. 2 : who 
would cause a " falling away " among the professed 
followers of Christ. 

When John means the devil or Satan, he does 
not hesitate to call him by name, as in 1 John 3 : 
8, 10, and other places. 

John writes, " They went out from us, but they 
were not of us ; for if they had been of us, they 
would have continued with us ; but they went out, 
that they might be made manifest how that they 
all are not of us. And ye have an anointing from 
the Holy One, and ye know all things." 2 : 19, 20. 
This is just as Jesus, on Olivet, told John it would 
be in the end. "For there shall arise false Christs 



THE PAROUSIA. 99 

and false prophets, and shall show great signs and 
wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they 
shall deceive the very elect." Matt. 24 : 24. In 2 : 
18, John says, "Little children, it is the last hour, 
as ye have heard that antichrist cometh, even now 
have there arisen many antichrists ; whereby we 
know that it is the last hour." The Jewish econ- 
omy is on the very eve of dissolution. The hour 
is at hand. We come now to the last use of the 
word parousia in Scripture. It was concerning 
Christ's parousia, when he would be present in 
power to destroy the temple, that the disciples in- 
quired. John says, 2:28: "And now, little chil- 
dren, abide in him ; that, when he shall appear, we 
may have confidence, and not be ashamed before 
him at his coming {parousia)!' 

John's use of the term "little children" can 
hardly be proof that John was an aged man when 
he wrote this epistle. The triplet, children, young 
men, and fathers, is a frequent and favorite expres- 
sion, showing his ardent love for the disciples, as 
Paul calls Timothy, "my son in the faith." 

Nor is there evidence in the epistle that the 
gospel of John had already been written. It is 
quite evident that the gospel and epistle were 
written by the same author. The same words and 
forms of expression are used to express the life- 
giving and soul-sustaining power of the gospel. 
" Abide in him " is a favorite expression. John 



IOO PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

unfolds the heart of the gospel in love to God and 
love to one another. In both the gospel and the 
epistle he writes from a forty-years' knowledge and 
experience of the gospel. The gospel may as well 
presuppose the epistle, as the epistle presuppose 
the gospel. 

Let us here briefly inquire what is meant by the 
'Mast days " and the "last times." Do they not 
mean the last days of the old dispensation, rather 
than the last days of the new, to which they are 
so often applied ? 

The disciples had heard Christ predict the 
end of the old economy. Peter with John heard 
Christ's discourse on Olivet concerning the de- 
struction of the temple. Paul had learned the gos- 
pel through them, and the direct teaching of Christ 
through the Spirit. All save John were to do all 
their preaching before the close of the old dispen- 
sation, so we might expect to hear them make 
allusions to the 'Mast days." 

We must also bear in mind that the epistles were 
not written, like the gospels, expressing the truth 
in an abstract form, and equally applicable to all 
the future, but for present emergencies, warning 
and correcting in doctrine and conduct, and com- 
mending the gospel. When Paul advised Timothy 
to "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine 
for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities," 
he did not prescribe for all men in all the future, 



THE PAROUSIA. IOI 

nor even for all Timothies, but for the one Timothy, 
his " own son in the faith," whose stomach at that 
time required just that cordial. 

The prophecy of Joel, of the outpouring of the 
spirit, is interpreted in the New Testament in the 
following language : " And it shall come to pass 
in the last days (saith God) I will pour out of my 
spirit upon all flesh ; and your sons and your 
daughters shall prophesy, and your young men 
shall see visions, and your old men shall dream 
dreams. And on my servants and on my hand- 
maidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit ; 
and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders 
in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath ; 
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall 
be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, 
before that great and notable day of the Lord 
come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever 
shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be 
saved." Acts 2: 17-21. This is precisely what 
took place in the last days of the old dispensation. 

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells 
us that God " hath, in these last days, spoken unto 
us by his Son." This is in contrast with his 
speaking in " time past unto the fathers, by the 
prophets." Heb. 1 : r, 2. Evidently the last days 
of the Jewish economy, as distinguished from ear- 
lier times. 

James says to the rich in his day, " Ye have laid 



102 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

up your treasure in the last days." 5:3. He ex- 
horts Christians then living to be patient, until the 
coming of the Lord, which would end that dispen- 
sation, and many of the perils incident to it. Peter 
speaks of Christ, "who was foreordained before 
the foundation of the world, but was manifest in 
these last times for you." 1 Pet. 1 : 20. He also 
warns the disciples that " there shall come in the 
last days scoffers." 2 Peter 3 : 3. And declares 
their signal overthrow, and says to the disciples 
then living, " Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye 
look for such things, be diligent that ye may be 
found of him in peace, without spot and blame- 
less." 3 : 14. This was something to occur while 
they might be living, showing conclusively that the 
last days were those of the old dispensation. Jude 
reminds the disciples, verse 18, how they had been 
told that " there should be mockers in the last 
time, who would walk after their own ungodly 
lusts," and exhorts them " to keep themselves in 
the love of God," showing that the mockers would 
come while they themselves might be living. If 
the allusions to the last days, found in the epistles, 
refer to the last days of the gospel age, it would 
be disappointing to Isaiah in his glowing hopes of 
the triumph of the gospel. But if they allude to 
the last days of the old dispensation, they agree 
with the literal fact of what Jesus said should take 
place, and what history tells us did take place, and 



THE PAROUSIA. IO3 

harmonize with the specific warnings and encour- 
agements given to the then living disciples. 

Paul says to Timothy, " Now the Spirit speaketh 
expressly, that in the latter times some shall de- 
part from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, 
and doctrines of devils." 1 Tim. 4:1. As he says 
to the Thessalonians, " there shall come a falling 
away first, and the man of sin be revealed." But 
Paul goes on to say, " If thou put the brethren in 
mind of these things, thou shalt be a good minis- 
ter of Jesus Christ," verse 6 ; showing that the 
latter times were while Timothy might still be 
living, and instructing him what to do. Also, in 
his Second Epistle to Timothy, Paul says, " This 
know also, that in the last days perilous times 
shall come," when wickedness should abound, when 
there would be those " having a form of godliness 
but denying the power thereof." He instructs 
Timothy in his duty. "From such turn away." 
" But continue thou in the things which thou hast 
learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom 
thou hast learned them." Such passages show 
most conclusively that the "last times " refer to 
the last days of the old dispensation, and describe 
the condition of things which Christ told the four 
disciples on Olivet would exist, ere their temple 
should be destroyed, and cannot, as is so often 
done, with any degree of justice, be referred to the 
last days of the gospel age. Nor can the " last 



104 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

days," " last times," with any correctness in the 
use of terms, be made to embrace the whole gos- 
pel age. For this, another term is used. " Lo, I 
am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world " (czon), age. Matt. 28 : 20. Paul speaks 
of Christians being " raised up and made to sit in 
heavenly places, that in the ages {cBdns) to come, he 
might show the exceeding riches of his grace." 
Eph. 2 : 7. 

Nor can we believe, as is sometimes affirmed, 
that the Revealer of truth has so put the matter 
in the Scriptures that in all the succeeding ages 
men should live in constant expectation of a second 
coming of Christ to the earth, in bodily form, to 
put an end to the gospel age, or to be present per- 
sonally on the earth as in the days of his incarna- 
tion. Shall he who rules in righteousness, rule 
with the rod of deception ? But that men may 
be called into his presence individually, at any 
moment, to give their account to him, is presented 
as a constant motive for doing the things pleasing 
in his sight. 

We have examined the passages which speak of 
the coming of Christ as translated from parousia, 
twenty-four in number, in the New Testament, 
which so significantly means presence, and find that 
they almost uniformly refer to the presence of 
Christ in power to destroy Jerusalem, thus putting 
an end to the Jewish economy, or to some display 



THE PAROUSIA. IO5 

of power to establish his kingdom. It will be seen 
that we reject the double meaning sometimes given 
to the language in Matt. 24 ; making a part find its 
fulfilment in the destruction of Jerusalem, and a 
part in a second advent of Christ at the end of 
the world. The double meaning impairs the integ- 
rity of the Bible as a revelation to men. Who 
shall say how much finds its fulfilment in the first, 
and how much in the last event ? This is evi- 
dently not the way God makes a revelation. He 
reveals great principles which find their application 
all along human history. Moses could say to the 
people, if they were disobedient, " Be sure your 
sins will find you out," — a truth applicable in all 
ages to all people. It finds its full application in 
the Jews, also in the Gentiles ; not a partial fulfil- 
ment in the Jews, and a more complete one in the 
Gentiles. We come now to examine some pas- 
sages which speak of Christ's coming, as translated 
from erkomai, which means " I come," and the sy- 
nonymous expressions, " the appearing of Christ," 
"the revelation of Christ," " Christ as manifested," 
and the like. A careful examination of the pas- 
sages will show that they refer sometimes to the 
advent of Christ to this world to die for the sins 
of men ; sometimes to his coming in power at 
the destruction of Jerusalem ; sometimes to his 
coming or manifesting himself in blessings and 
judgments along life's journey ; sometimes to his 



106 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

coming by the Spirit as on the day of Pentecost ; 
sometimes to his coming to the soul by spiritual 
manifestations ; and sometimes to the events which 
cluster about death, when the soul, untrammelled 
by its earthly body, will behold Christ in his glory. 
Christ will then appear to the saints as never be- 
fore. When these passages are rightly interpreted, 
we think the Bible will be silent about a second 
advent of Christ in bodily presence at the end of 
the world. 

A passage recorded in Acts I : 1 1, is quoted 
with much confidence in favor of Christ's future 
return in bodily form, and therefore demands care- 
ful examination. The apostles themselves had not 
very clear views of the kingdom of Christ. Just 
prior to the crucifixion, Christ, in order to comfort 
the disciples, addressed them in language recorded 
in John 14: 17, saying, among other things, "I 
will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto 
you." But when he was crucified and laid in the 
tomb, they were depressed in spirit, their hope 
was well-nigh gone. They needed just the reas- 
surance which his appearance among them gave 
after his resurrection. When about to ascend to 
the Father, he led the disciples to Olivet. Their 
minds were not very clear yet, for even there they 
ask, " Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the king- 
dom to Israel ? " Having addressed a few parting 
words to them, " He was taken up and a cloud 



THE PAROUSIA. IO7 

received him out of their sight. And while they 
looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, 
behold two men stood by them in white apparel, 
who also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye 
gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who is 
taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in 
like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." 
As the disciples were bereft of the presence of 
their Lord, they needed assurance and comfort. 
Two angels were sent to give this. Was it by as- 
suring them that Christ would come two or four 
thousand years hence, or at some indefinite future 
time, however distant, and that they should see 
him descending ? The time when they would need 
consolation would be centuries past. Was not the 
meaning rather this, " I am not going to forsake 
you " ? Was not the fulfilment of the promise in 
the " Lo, I am with you always " ; "I will come 
unto you " ; "I and my Father will make our 
abode with you " ? May not the apparent literal- 
ness of the language be to make the assurance 
strong ? The real meaning of the passage is, that 
as sure as you have seen him go up into heaven, 
so sure shall he be with you in his personal spirit- 
ual presence. It is the expression of true Chris- 
tian consciousness of Christ, not afar off, but nigh 
at hand. " Christ in you the hope of glory." 

The correct interpretation of Christ's sayings 
gives no ground for believing that he taught them 



108 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

that he would come bodily and visibly at the end 
of the world. The words hon tropon mean not so 
much the particular manner, as they do the cer- 
tainty of his spiritual presence. He will not for- 
sake them. If it is insisted on that the words 
"in like manner" mean his return as he went, it 
conflicts with other passages ; for he went up 
quietly and alone. Other passages quoted repre- 
sent him as coming " in glory, and all the holy 
angels with him." " For the Lord himself shall 
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice 
of the archangel and with the trump of God," 
— a very different manner from that described in 
Acts i : ii. Besides, he parted from the disciples 
with his maimed physical body. Has he worn it 
all these centuries, and shall he return with it ? 
We think not. When the disciples next view 
their Lord, it will be in his glorified body. They 
" shall see him as he is and be like him." Rev. I : 
7 assists in the interpretation of this passage : 
"Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye 
shall see him, and they who pierced him ; and all 
the tribes of the earth shall mourn over him." 
This passage would seem to express the literal re- 
turn of Christ in bodily form as strongly as the 
other. Yet John tells us plainly that the revela- 
tion he makes is that "which God gave unto him, 
to show unto his servants the things which must 
shortly come to pass," and says, "the time is at 



THE PAROUSIA. IO9 

hand." It will be seen that we assume the earlier 
date of the writing of Revelation. This passage 
most evidently refers to what Christ teaches as 
recorded in Matt. 24. The reader's attention is 
called to some other passages quoted in favor of 
the return of Christ at the end of the world. In 
Acts 3 : 20, 21, we read, "And that he may send 
the Christ who hath been appointed for you, even 
Jesus : whom the heaven must receive, until the 
times of restoration of all things, whereof God 
spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, who have 
been from of old." 

Very soon after the day of Pentecost, as Peter 
and John were going into the temple at the hour 
of prayer, they met a lame man and healed him ; 
and as the people ran into the porch of the temple, 
greatly wondering at what was done, Peter preached 
unto them, assuring them that the marvellous cure 
wrought upon the lame man had been made through 
Him whom they had rejected and crucified, and 
also assuring them that all those things which God 
" had showed by the mouth of all his holy prophets 
that Christ should suffer he hath so fulfilled." He 
calls on them to repent, "that times of refreshing 
may come from the presence of the Lord." He 
enunciated to them one, of the fundamental princi- 
ples necessary to have the presence of Christ and 
for the advancement of his kingdom ; that is, re- 
pentance towards God and forgiveness of their 



I I O PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

sins. The sending of Jesus, " whom the heavens 
must receive until the times of the restoration of 
all things," does not mean, we think, that he shall 
send him at the end of the world, thousands of 
years hence, but rather it was the assurance of 
Christ present with them, a reiteration of what 
Christ had said to his disciples, " Lo, I am with 
you always, even unto the end of the world " ; also 
of those comforting words in Christ's last discourse 
to the disciples before the betrayal : " I will not 
leave you comfortless; I will come to you. He 
that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I 
will love him, and will manifest myself to him." 
It was the key-note of the kingdom, the parousia 
dispensation, a present Christ. And not only a 
Christ present in spirit and power, but in heaven 
also, as the intercessor for his people, at the right 
hand of God, even until the " restoration of all 
things, whereof God spake by the mouth of all 
his holy prophets." 

Christ's consoling words in John 14 : 3, " And 
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
again, and receive you unto myself, that where I 
am there ye may be also," find a fulfilment at death 
when the soul shuffles off its mortal coil, and goes 
to be with Christ, as Paul " desired to depart and 
be with Christ which is far better." Paul said, 
"when Christ who is our life shall appear, then 
shall we appear with him in glory." Col. 3 : 4. 



THE PAROUSIA. I I I 

When mortal eyes shall give place to spiritual 
vision at death, then shall Jesus appear. Then 
will the saint appear with him in glory. 

In 2 Thes. I, we read, " When the Lord Jesus 
shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty 
angels. . . . When he shall come to be glorified 
in his saints." The context shows that this refers 
to his coming in power to destroy Jerusalem and 
the Jewish economy, and fully inaugurate the gos- 
pel kingdom. In I Cor. 1 1 : 26, we read, "For as 
oft as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do 
show the Lord's death till he come." This pas- 
sage finds an easy and natural solution, if we re- 
fer it to Christ coming for the saints at death. So 
long as they lived were they to observe the ordi- 
nance of the supper. 

"Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 1 Cor. 1:7. In the Canterbury version 
it reads, " Waiting for the revelation!' This reve- 
lation was for the purpose of confirming them 
unto the end, "that ye may be blameless in the 
day of our Lord Jesus Christ." They were to be 
confirmed by the coming, for something still future 
in their lives on the earth, so that the coming 
could not be at the end of the world. 

Paul exhorts Timothy to " keep this command- 
ment without spot and unrebukable, until the ap- 
pearing of our Lord Jesus Christ ; which in his 
times he shall show, who is the blessed and only 



I I 2 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

Potentate, the King of kings, and the Lord of 
lords." I Tim. 6: 15. This is Paul's version of 
what Christ said to the high priest who had asked 
the Saviour whether he were the Christ the Son 
of God, and he answered, " Hereafter ye shall see 
the Son of man sitting on the right hand of 
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Matt. 
26 : 64. The proof to the Jews of Christ's right 
to reign was his appearing in power to destroy 
their city and temple. In Revelation we find the 
word " come," referring to Christ's manifesting 
himself unto his people. ■' Repent, and do thy 
first works ; or else I will come unto thee quickly," 
2:5, 16. "Hold fast till I come," 25; " I will 
come as a thief," 3:3; " Behold I come quickly," 
3:11; "I will come in to him," 3 : 20 ; " And 
behold, I come quickly," 22 : 12. " Surely, I come 
quickly : Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." 
These assertions were to be fulfilled soon, and can- 
not with propriety be referred to a second advent 
of Christ at the end of the world. They were to 
be fulfilled in Christ's spiritual presence and power. 
" Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this 
book ; for the time is at hand." 22 : 10. 

We close this chapter in the words of an emi- 
nent theologian : " On the whole, the tone of the 
New Testament teaching regards the Day of the 
Lord, His coming, and eternal reign as at hand 
always." 



RESURRECTION. 113 



CHAPTER IV. 

RESURRECTION. 



The different views concerning the resurrection, 
held by Christians, show that it is still a subject 
for prayerful investigation in the study of the 
Scriptures. Some hold to the simultaneous rais- 
ing from their graves of the bodies of both the 
righteous and the wicked, at the end of the world. 
Others hold that the righteous dead will be raised 
a thousand years before the wicked. And others 
hold that the wicked will not be raised at all. 
Some believe that the soul, the whole man, lies 
unconscious in the grave till a general resurrec- 
tion. There is held also what is termed the inter- 
mediate state, the time between death and a gen- 
eral resurrection, that the righteous are in para- 
dise, a semi-heaven, and that the wicked are in a 
semi-hell. To get the souls safely through this 
intermediate state, some have intimated that they 
might be provided with provisional bodies. Others 
hold that man receives his spiritual, resurrection 
body at death, either directly given of God, or 
developed by the energizing forces already in man. 
Surely such conflicting opinions justify and demand 
8 



114 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

a careful investigation to ascertain what the Scrip- 
tures do teach. 

Job, speaking of things as they appear, says, 
" Man that is born of a woman, is of few days, and 
full of trouble. Hecometh forth like a flower, and 
is cut down ; he fleeth also as a shadow, and con- 
tinueth not." " There is hope of a tree, if it be 
cut down, that it will sprout again." " But man 
dieth, and wasteth away : yea, man giveth up the 
ghost, and where is he ? " And asks, " If a man die, 
shall he live again ? " Job 14. 

This has been the question of the ages, and is 
vital to man : What is beyond this mortal life ? 
The ancients could answer it but faintly. All the 
learning of the Greeks and Romans could not set- 
tle it. Many of the heathen have believed in the 
transmigration of souls, finally ending in Nigban, 
or annihilation, as the chief good. Among the 
Jews, the Pharisees believed in a future life, the 
Sadducees disbelieved in it. And to day many 
have a bright hope of a life beyond, while not a few 
say, "I don't know about the future ; no one ever 
came back from the dead to tell us ; and I think 
when we die that is the end of us." 

It may be helpful to a correct understanding of 
the meaning of the word " resurrection," to ascertain 
how the Jews understood it. Josephus says, speak- 
ing of the Pharisees, " They also believe that souls 
have an immortal vigor in them, and that under 



RESURRECTION. 1 1 5 

the earth there will be rewards or punishments 
according as they have lived virtuously or viciously 
in this life ; and that the latter are to be detained 
in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall 
have power to revive and live again." " But the 
doctrine of the Sadducees is this, that souls die 
with the bodies." Ant. of the Jews, Vol. II., Book 
18, chap. 1, sec. 3, 4. Again he says of the belief 
of the Pharisees, " They say, that all the souls are 
incorruptible, but that the souls of good men only 
are removed into other bodies, but the souls of bad 
men are subject to eternal punishment." Speak- 
ing of the Sadducees, he says, " They also take away 
the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and 
the punishments and rewards in Hades " Jewish 
War, B. II., chap. 8, sec. 14. Again Josephus 
says, "This is the discourse concerning Hades, 
wherein the souls of all men are confined until a 
proper season, which God hath determined, when 
he will make a resurrection of all men from the 
dead ; not procuring a transmigration of souls from 
one body to another, but raising again those very 
bodies which you Greeks, seeing to be dissolved, 
do not believe (their resurrection). . . . And to 
every body shall its own soul be restored. And 
when it hath clothed itself with that body, it will 
not be subject to misery ; but being itself pure, it 
will continue with its pure body, and rejoice with 
it ; with which it having walked righteously now in 



Il6 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

this world, and never having had it as a snare, it 
will receive it again with great gladness. But as 
for the unjust, they will receive their bodies not 
changed, not freed from diseases or distempers, 
nor made glorious, but with the same diseases 
wherein they died ; and such as they were in their 
unbelief, the same shall they be when they shall 
be faithfully judged." Art. Hades, sec. 5. From 
these extracts it appears that the majority of the 
Pharisees believed in a resurrection of a material 
body from the grave for the righteous only, that 
for the soul to obtain a material resurrection body 
was one of the rewards to the righteous, while the 
souls of the wicked should be forever deprived of 
such a body ; though it would seem that Jqsephus 
himself believed that both the righteous and wicked 
would receive a resurrection body, that of the 
wicked being greatly inferior to that of the right- 
eous. 

It must be borne in mind that the term " resurrec- 
tion," when referring to the issue between the Phar- 
isees and Sadducees, means future life, in distinc- 
tion from annihilation of soul and body. Whether 
there should be raised up a material body for the 
soul or not, was not an issue between them. The 
phrase " the resurrection of the body " is not found 
in the New Testament, while the phrase " the res- 
urrection of the dead " is quite frequent and may 
mean quite different from the resurrection of the 



RESURRECTION. 1 1 7 

body as commonly understood. Neither is the 
phrase " resurrection day " or " day of resurrec- 
tion " found as if all were to come forth from their 
graves on some day already determined. 

There are strong intimations of a future life 
given in the Old Testament Scriptures in the prom- 
ised rewards to the righteous, and the threatenings 
denounced against the wicked. Paul tells us Christ 
has " abolished death and hath brought life and 
immortality to light through the gospel." Natural 
death yet reigns, but Christ has shown that it does 
not end life ; the man still lives. Much that we 
know of each other is in intimate relation with the 
mortal body. Hence we speak of the body as em- 
bracing the whole man. The body dies, we say 
the man is dead. The body is buried, and we say 
the man is buried. But this is not true. The real 
man, the soul, is not dead or buried. The man 
has simply " shuffled off his mortal coil," " put off 
this tabernacle of flesh." Every aspiration of faith 
and hope abhors the thought that the real man is 
dead. The Scriptures speak in the same natural 
and unguarded manner. They speak of the dead 
as being in their graves. They teach that the real 
man is not dead, nor in the grave. It is perfectly 
natural that the doctrine of a future life should be 
taught under the semblance of the resurrection of 
the body. As the end of man is at the grave, so 
far as we can see, so there could be no more forcible 



IlS PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

manner of teaching of a future life than to speak of 
it as a resurrection from the grave. 

The term "resurrection" in Scriptures sometimes 
means a rising up of the soul on the other side of 
the grave, a coming forth into future life. This 
is the more common meaning. Sometimes it means 
rising into spiritual life, as where Paul wished to 
know the power of Christ's "resurrection, and the 
fellowship of his sufferings, being made conform- 
able unto his death : if by any means he might 
attain unto the resurrection of the dead." Phil. 3 : 
II. A resurrection out from among the spiritually 
dead. A final separation from them. So Christ 
is said to be " set for the fall and rising again of 
many in Israel." The resurrection to spiritual life. 
Sometimes it means future life. " Then came unto 
him the Sadducees, who say that there is no resur- 
rection." Matt. 21 : 23 ; Mark 12 : 18 ; Luke 20 : 27. 
Sometimes the word means reanimation, as in the 
case of Jairus' daughter, the widow's son at Nain, 
Lazarus at Bethany, and those raised at the cruci- 
fixion of our Lord. Matt. 27 : 52. These cases 
prove nothing as to the form and manner of re- 
ceiving the spiritual resurrection body. Christ's 
body was reanimated on the third day after the 
crucifixion. It is prophetically said of Him, " My 
flesh shall rest in hope ; For thou wilt not leave 
my soul in hell ; neither wilt thou surfer thine 
Holy One to see corruption." Ps. 16: 9, 10. 



RESURRECTION. H9 

Peter quotes this in his sermon at Jerusalem on 
the day of Pentecost, and expressly declares that 
David "spake of the resurrection of Christ, that 
his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did 
see corruption." This could not have been his 
spiritual body, because the flesh is particularly 
spoken of, that which is corruptible and decays, 
but this was preserved from corruption, for the 
purpose of being raised up, as a proof of Christ's 
power over death and the grave, and to prove his 
identity. It was Christ's flesh-and-blood body, 
and " flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom 
of God." There were the same wounds in his 
body after, as before his resurrection. . If it proves 
anything as a model of the resurrection body, it 
proves too much. It shows that the wounded and 
maimed bodies here will be wounded and maimed 
in the resurrection. The resurrection body is said 
to be a glorified body. Christ " shall change our 
vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his 
glorious body." There was apparently no more 
glory about Christ's body after the resurrection 
than before. It was the same body reanimated. 
It needed to be the same body, that the disciples 
might know that it was the Christ who was buried 
that had risen again. 

Christ did not intend that his resurrection should 
be a type and model of man's resurrection body. 
Christ by raising Lazarus and others, and by him- 



120 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

self coming forth from the grave, showed what 
man needs and longs to know, that natural death 
has not dominion over the man ; there is a life 
beyond. 

Death may seem mighty, and cut down the body 
and consign it to corruption. Christ is mightier, 
and by death has conquered death and brought 
life and immortality to light. Christ said, " I am 
the resurrection and the life." " And whosoever 
liveth and believeth in me shall never die." The 
disciples might believe it on the authority of his 
words, but when they beheld him risen from the 
dead, they had evidence before their eyes of its 
truth. It spake loudly of future life. It was not 
so much the physical characteristics of a resur- 
rection body that Christ needed to teach, as the 
certainty that there should be a resurrection body. 
He needed to bring life and immortality to light. 

Jesus gives us light on this subject, at Bethany, 
when he raises Lazarus from the dead. When 
Martha met him, she said, " Lord, if thou hadst 
been here, my brother had not died. But I know, 
that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, 
God wilt give it thee." Jesus saith unto her, "Thy 
brother shall rise again." Martha said unto him, 
"I know that he shall rise again at the resurrection 
at the last day." She might have had in mind the 
resurrection of the body at a general resurrection 
of the righteous dead, according to the belief of 



RESURRECTION. 121 

the Pharisees. Whether so or not, Christ neither 
corrected nor approved of her saying, but takes 
advantage of the occasion to teach a grander truth, 
what man needs so much to be assured of, a 
blessed future life for the righteous. He says, " I 
am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth 
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : 
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
never die " John n : 25, 26. He speaks of spirit- 
ual life, but underlying this, he asserts a grander 
truth, — a perpetual future existence, which makes 
a perpetual spiritual life possible. 

There is a remarkable passage recorded in Matt. 
22: 23-33; Mark 12: 18--27; Luke 20: 27-40. 
The account is similar in the three evangelists. 
It was spoken on the third day of the last Pass- 
over week. The Pharisees and Herodians had 
attempted to entangle Jesus in his talk, by a 
question about the tribute money. They . were 
confounded by his answers and left him. The 
Sadducees next attempt it. " The same day came 
to him the Sadducees, who say that there is no 
resurrection, and asked him, saying, Master, Moses 
said, If a man die, having no children, his brother 
shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his 
brother. Now there were seven brethren : and 
the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, 
and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother ; 
Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the 



122 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

seventh. And last of all the woman died also. 
Therefore in the resurrection, whose wife shall she 
be of the seven? for they all had her." "The 
Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither 
angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both." 
Acts 23 : 8. Paul often divided the assembly by 
asserting his belief in the resurrection. 

The distinction is not that the Pharisees believed 
that the bodies of the dead would be raised, which 
the Sadducees denied. This mattered little, be- 
cause future life would be as possible one way as 
the other. It was something more vital to man.* 
The distinction was between future life and anni- 
hilation. Resurrection, affirmed by the Pharisees, 
means future existence ; denied by the Sadducees, 
means no existence beyond the grave. The puz- 
zling question which the Sadducees put to Jesus 
is this. Taking the view of the Pharisees, that we 
continue to live on after the body ceases here, and 
the spirit enters into the body again, whose wife 
shall the woman be who had had seven husbands 
in this life ? Mark the answer : " Ye do err, not 
knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. 
For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are 
given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in 
heaven." They do not marry in the future world, 
and in that respect are like the angels. Then he 
unfolds to them the truth concerning the resur- 
rection : " But as touching the resurrection of the 



RESURRECTION. 1 23 

dead, have ye not read that which was spoken 
unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abra- 
ham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? 
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. 
And when the multitude heard this, they were as- 
tonished at his doctrine." They were Jews, de- 
scendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They 
believed in Moses, and so Christ makes the appeal ; 
" Have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in 
the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the 
God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the 
•God of Jacob ? He is not the God of the dead, 
but the God of the living : ye do therefore greatly 
err." Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were then alive, 
they had received their resurrection, and we think 
were clothed in their spiritual bodies. Their mor- 
tal bodies were yet mouldering in the grave ; and 
whatever resurrection meant, Christ told them 
plainly that these men had already received ; for 
they were then alive. It was a new doctrine to 
the multitude, and so different from what they had 
believed, that they were greatly astonished. 

Let us now glance at 1 Cor. 15. In the first 
part of the chapter, Paul assures us of the resurrec- 
tion of Christ on the testimony of eye-witnesses. 
Resurrection is here used in the sense of reanima- 
tion. He links the truthfulness of the gospel with 
the resurrection of Christ. " If Christ is not 
raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins." 



124 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

He "bases the resurrection of the dead, or their 
future life, on the resurrection of Christ. If 
Christ is not raised, they " who are fallen asleep, 
have perished." They have already perished. 
That is the end of them. If their spirit was 
happy in paradise, they would not have perished, 
though their mortal body might not be raised. 
But Paul say§, " But now hath Christ been raised 
from the dead, the first-fruits of them that are 
asleep." As the first-fruits were the assurance of 
the harvest, so the resurrection of Christ from the 
dead w d s the assurance of a future life, not that 
the bodies of the dead should be raised as was 
Christ's body, for his was reanimated as we have 
seen. Christ's resurrection was in no sense the 
first-fruits, as a model of the resurrection body, 
but was an assurance of a resurrection body and 
of a future life. It was an answer to the question, 
" How say some among you that there is no resur- 
rection of the dead ? " Just what the Sadducees 
were asserting. 

In verses 20-28 inclusive we have a digression, 
showing the working of redemption under the 
parousia dispensation. Christ is working in his 
saints, that every thought may be brought into 
obedience to him, that God may be all and in all 
to the individual saint. Thus Christ delivers up 
the kingdom to God the Father, as he brings sub- 
jects, one by one, to obedience to him. " The last 



RESURRECTION. 1 25 

enemy that shall be abolished is death." Death 
makes the victory complete. 

In these few verses, Paul states the position of 
each saint before God in the entireness of his 
history. Death by sin, resurrection to life through 
Christ, discipline into full submission to God and 
meetnessfor the higher kingdom, then death, when 
the saint takes his place in heaven. 

Let it be borne in mind that Paul is speaking 
particularly of the resurrection of the saints. 
" For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall 
all be made alive. But each in his own order." 
The saints will be raised each in his own order. 
"Then cometh the end," the outcome of redemp- 
tion with each here, where Christ has had all 
things put in subjection to him. Then they pass 
on through death, their last enemy, to. the better 
kingdom, where, forever subject to the Father, 
Christ, in his glorified, spiritual body, will be the 
visible manifestation of God to the saints, the visi- 
ble manifestation of the invisible, the visible object 
of divine authority, the visible object of adoration 
in the u new song." 

Verses 29-32 are logically connected with verse 
19. " Else what shall they do who are baptized 
for the dead ? If the dead are not raised at all, why 
then are they baptized for the dead ? " Why do 
they submit to baptism, which symbolizes death 
and resurrection, — that ordinance which symbol- 



126 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

izes the death and resurrection of Christ, once dead 
but now living, and who liveth forever ; death of the 
old man, but life in the new man, and that eternal ; 
death of the mortal body, but yet life beyond the 
grave, a resurrection of the man on the other side 
of the veil ? If there be no future life, the ordi- 
nance symbolizes what is false, why then do they 
submit to it ? The argument is cumulative, and 
Paul goes on to say, " Why do we also stand in 
jeopardy every hour ? I protest by that glorying 
in you, brethren, which I have in Christ Jesus our 
Lord, I die daily. If after the manner of men I 
fought with beasts at Ephesus, what doth it profit 
me ? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and 
drink, for to-morrow we die." If there is no future 
life, why endure all this suffering ? Mark the form 
of expression, "if the dead are not raised." It is 
not in the future tense, and may mean, but the ex- 
pression does not necessarily imply, that the dead 
are already raised. 

Paul then discusses the nature of the resurrec- 
tion body, in answer to the question, "But some one 
will say, How are the dead raised ? and with what 
manner of body do they come?" Verses 35-58. 
He illustrates in the use of grain, " Thou foolish 
one, that which thou thyself sowest is not quick- 
ened, except it die ; and that which thou sowest, 
thou sowest not the body that shall be, but bare 
grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other 



RESURRECTION. 12 J 

kind ; but God giveth it a body, even as it pleased 
him, and to each seed a body of its own." When 
the grain sown in the earth dies, there is developed 
other grain, which in due time appears. So the 
mortal body dies, moulders away in common dust, 
death being the occasion of the development of a 
spiritual body adapted to the soul's future need. 
"Thou sowest not the body that shall be." Paul 
clearly asserts that the body shall not be raised. 
Then he asserts, " All flesh is not the same flesh ; 
but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of 
beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another 
of fishes." By this he illustrates the fact that 
the future body may be very different from the 
present. 

Then he takes an advanced step. " There are 
also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial ; but the 
glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the 
terrestrial is another." Here men and angels are 
contrasted. He shows that the future body is to 
be very different from the present, and does he 
not intimate that it may be similar to that of an- 
gels ? " There is one glory of the sun, and another 
glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars : 
for one star differeth from another star in glory." 
Here he expresses the difference of the glory of 
the body here and hereafter. " So also is the 
resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, 
it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonor, 



I2S TROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness, it is 
raised in power : it is sown a natural, psychical 
body, it is raised a spiritual body." Here Paul as- 
serts essential facts concerning the spiritual body, 
contrasting it with the mortal body at death. The 
future body of the saints will be incorruptible, 
glorious, powerful, and spiritual. 

His reasoning shows conclusively that Christ 
did not show to his disciples, after his resurrection, 
his spiritual body, but the same body he laid down. 
" If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual 
body. So also it is written, The first man became 
a living soul, the last Adam became a life-giving 
spirit. Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, 
but that which is natural : then that which is spirit- 
ual. The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the 
second man is of heaven. As is the earthy, such 
are they also that are earthy ; and as is the 
heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 
And as we have borne the .image of the earthy, 
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." 
The contrast in this passage is made between the 
body here and in the next world. Three times the 
word natural is used. In the margin of the Can- 
terbury version it is psychical, from the Greek psy- 
clrikos, an adjective from the same root as the word 
psyche, which is translated soul, "what shall it 
profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his 
own soul?'' 



RESURRECTION. I 29 

Paul means more by that term than flesh {sarx) 
and blood. He means the body, with all its vital 
and energizing forces, which adapt it to life here. 
He gives us the assurance that we shall have a 
body suited to the spirit world. Does he not say 
that we have it already ? " If there is a natural 
body, there is also a spiritual body." May it not 
be that there is a spiritual body to which the 
psychical adheres, or that all the vital elements 
and energizing forces of a spiritual body are pres- 
ent ? That the psychical is the tabernacle in some 
way enclosing the spiritual. " The first man is of 
the earth, earthy." This is our earthy body, which 
crumbles back to earth. " The second man is of 
heaven." God-given, directly from heaven, inde- 
pendent of any gross earthly material. Surely, 
in the face of such language, we cannot believe 
that the spiritual body comes up from the grave. 

Paul then asserts the broad and decisive fact, that 
" flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." 
By this assertion he forever sets aside the idea 
that this earthy body is the material from which 
the spiritual body is formed, or that it is in any 
way earthy in its formation. This earthly body, 
this " tabernacle of flesh," must be put off, not 
made over into a spiritual body, but laid aside for- 
ever. Paul does not leave us in the dark. He 
tells, so far as he is able, of the mysterious change 
9 



I30 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

that takes place at death. " Behold, I tell you a 
mystery : we all shall not sleep, but we shall all be 
changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, 
at the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, 
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we 
shall be changed. For this corruptible must put 
on incorruption, and this mortal must put on im- 
mortality. But when this corruptible shall have 
put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put 
on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying 
that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 
O ! death, where is thy victory ? O ! death, where 
is thy sting ? " 

This passage, especially v. 51, should not be rel- 
egated to some future period, and made applicable 
to a class that might never taste natural death, for 
Paul is continuing his argument of the resurrection 
body. When he asserts that " flesh and blood can- 
not inherit the kingdom of God," he goes on to tell 
of the mysterious change that instantaneously takes 
place with every saint when the mortal body dies. 
He assumes his spiritual body " in a moment, in 
the twinkling of an eye." When it is said "it is 
sown in corruption ; it is raised in incorruption," 
"this mortal must put on immortality," it does not 
follow that the mortal body is to be changed into a 
spiritual body, any more than it means that the 
soul, the whole man, goes to the grave when Job 
says, "so he that goeth down to the grave shall 



RESURRECTION. 131 

come up no more," or the Psalmist prayed that 
"the wicked might be silent in the grave." 

The sounding of the "last trump" is an oriental- 
ism. Great events were ushered in by the sound 
of the trumpet. The sound of the trumpet called 
the people to war. The sound of the trumpet pro- 
claimed the end of servitude and the ushering in 
of the year of Jubilee. The death of the body is 
one of the great events of man's existence. Death 
to the Christian ends all servitude and accompany- 
ing suffering, and ushers in the jubilee of heaven. 
How fitting, then, that Paul should speak of it in 
connection with the sound of the trumpet ! 

An important passage is found in 2 Cor. 5 : 1-9 : 
" For we know that if the earthly house of our 
tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from 
God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to 
be clothed upon with our habitation which is from 
heaven : if so be that being clothed we shall not be 
found naked. For, indeed, we that are in this tab- 
ernacle do groan, being burdened ; not for that we 
would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed 
upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of 
life. Now he that wrought us ^for this very thing 
is God, who gave unto us the earnest of the spirit. 
Being, therefore, always of good courage, and 
knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, 
we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, 



132 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

not by sight) ; we are of good courage, I say, and 
are willing rather to be absent from the body, and 
to be at home with the Lord. Wherefore, also, we 
make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be 
well pleasing unto him." "The earthly house," 
which is the mortal body, is here contrasted with 
" the house not made with hands," which is the 
spiritual body. Paul longed to put off the one and 
take on the other, and expected as soon as he put 
off the one to be clothed upon with the other. He 
did not expect to go a disembodied spirit, but to be 
immediately clothed with his house from heaven. 
He did not anticipate any intermediate state, or 
provisional body, or to wait at a distance, but to go 
home at once and be with his Lord, clothed in his 
spiritual body. He very closely associated life here 
with life hereafter, and sought to be well pleasing 
to his Lord. This appears the most natural mean- 
ing of the passage. It may not harmonize with 
the view of eschatology which many hold, but it 
does harmonize with Christian sentiment drawn 
from the doctrines of Christ. We express the truth 
when we sing, — 

" E'er since by faith I saw the stream 

Thy flowing wounds supply, 
Redeeming love has been my theme, 

And shall be till I die. 
Then in a nobler, sweeter song 

I '11 sing thy power to save, 
When this poor, lisping, stammering tongue 

Lies silent in the grave." 



RESURRECTION. I 33 

With Paul, we rightly comfort ourselves that our 
departed, sainted friends are not waiting for a 
spiritual body, in a half-conscious, half-happy state, 
but have gone to be with their Lord, and are enjoy- 
ing the bliss of heaven. 

Paul says to the Philippians, 1 : 21-24: "For to 
me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if to 
live in the flesh, if this shall bring fruit from my 
work, then what I shall choose I know not. But 
I am in a strait betwixt the two, having the desire 
to depart and be with Christ ; for it is very far 
better : yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for 
your sake." 

Paul expected, as soon as he put off his body of 
flesh, that he would go immediately to live with 
Christ. For him to complete his work here, it was 
necessary to abide in the flesh. He speaks as if 
all that would be essential for him to have, to dwell 
in the presence of Christ, he would possess when 
he should have put off the flesh. This surely must 
include a spiritual body. 

In the light of this passage, we should interpret 
what is recorded in 1 Thes. 4: 13-18: "But we 
would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning 
them that fall asleep ; that ye sorrow not, even as 
the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that 
Jesus died and rose again, even so them also, that 
are fallen asleep in Jesus, will God bring with him. 
For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord, 



134 FROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

that we who are alive, who are left unto the coming 
(parousid) of the Lord, shall in no wise precede 
them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord himself 
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the 
voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God : 
and the dead in Christ shall rise first : then we who 
are alive, who are left, shall together with them be 
caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." We 
have already shown in Chapter III. that the com- 
ing of the Lord, spoken of in v. 15, refers to some- 
thing which was soon to take place, evidently the 
closing of the old dispensation by the destruction 
of Jerusalem, and the full inauguration of the new, 
in which the parousia is a chief characteristic. 
Paul writes to instruct and comfort the disciples in 
those trying times. Some whom he addressed 
would die before that event, others would be still 
alive. Would those who had died previous to that 
event be dropped out and lost ? "No," says Paul, 
•' them also who are fallen asleep in Jesus will God 
bring with him." They will be in heaven before 
we are, who, perchance, may live to see that event. 
We shall in no wise precede them that are fallen 
asleep. "The dead in Christ shall rise first." 
They will have obtained their resurrection before 
we do. If we receive our spiritual body, when we 
put off the fleshly one ; or in other words, if we re- 
ceive our resurrection body at death, this is the 



RESURRECTION. 1 35 

exact truth expressed, the dead in Christ shall rise 
first, before those who had outlived them. " Then 
those who are alive, who are left, shall together 
with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the 
Lord in the air : and so shall we ever be with the 
Lord." This expresses not what took place, or 
shall take place, as one grand event, but what has 
been and is taking place constantly in the parousia 
dispensation, as the saints, one by one, abandon 
their earthly tabernacle, and become " clothed 
upon " with their spiritual body, and rise and go 
home to be forever with the Lord. 

Does not this view throw light on Rom. 8 : 19-23, 
allowed to be a difficult passage to explain ? " For 
I reckon that the sufferings of this present time 
are not worthy to be compared with the glory 
which shall be revealed to us-ward. For the ear- 
nest expectation of the creation waiteth for the 
revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was 
subject to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason 
of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation 
itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of 
corruption into the liberty of the glory of the chil- 
dren of God. For we know that the whole creation 
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 
And not only so, but ourselves also, who have the 
first-fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan 
within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, 
the redemption of our body." 



I3'5 FROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

The word rendered creation here is the same as 
in Mark 16: 15, in the great commission, " Go 
preach the gospel to every creature" and may prop- 
erly be rendered in the same way. By creature 
may be understood the whole man, the body as 
well as the soul. The apostle says that the suffer- 
ings we endure while in the body are not worthy 
to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed 
to us-ward. He affirms the universal truth that 
every creature suffers from its connection with an 
earthly body. Not only is this true of the world in 
general, but even we who are Christians, who have 
the first-fruits of the spirit, we suffer, waiting for 
the adoption, the redemption of our body. Paul 
is not longing for a body to be raised up from 
the grave eighteen hundred or ten thousand years 
hence, but for that redemption of his body which 
he shall receive when his eyes open on eternal 
things, and the sons of God shall be revealed to 
him in their glorious liberty, and when he shall be 
like them. 

Notice also how Peter speaks of his speedy death : 
" And I think it right, as long as I am in this tab- 
ernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remem- 
brance ; knowing that the putting off of my taber- 
nacle cometh swiftly, even as the Lord Jesus Christ 
signified unto me." 2 Pet. 1:13, 14. He speaks 
of the body as the frail tenement of the soul, which 
he must soon put off. The ego, the self, the real 



RESURRECTION. 1 37 

man, would continue to live. Death seemed to him 
a small thing, simply the dropping of a tabernacle, 
something that would not interfere with active life. 
May we not then infer that he expected with Paul 
to be clothed upon with his spiritual body? 

There is a passage in 1 John 3 : 2, to be noted 
here : " Beloved, now are we the children of God, 
and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. 
We know that if he shall be manifested, we shall 
be like him ; for we shall see him even as he is." 
It is Christian sentiment and Bible truth also, that 
when Christ shall appear or be manifested, we 
shall be like him. " Our citizenship is in heaven ; 
from whence also we wait for a saviour, the Lord 
Jesus Christ : who shall fashion anew the body of 
our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the 
body of his glory." Phil. 3:21. This most evi- 
dently refers to the spiritual body. It is revealed 
truth, and was the expectation of the apostles that 
Christ would appear or be manifested to them 
when they should put off their tabernacle of flesh. 
This fixes death as the time when the saints receive 
their spiritual body, if indeed Christ now possesses 
his spiritual body, and undoubtedly he does, hav- 
ing, ere he entered the heavens, put aside his 
earthly tabernacle. This view is confirmed by 
Christ's declaration to the dying thief, " To-day 
shalt thou be with me in paradise." The thief 
received at death all that was essential for him to 



I38 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

Jiave, to be in the presence of Christ in paradise. 
He had just as much need of a spiritual body that 
day as he ever would have. And we may infer 
that he was already clothed in it. 

There is a remarkable scene in the life of our 
Lord, to which we may now call attention. Jesus 
leads Peter, James, and John up into a high moun- 
tain. They are there met by Moses and Elias from 
the other world. Moses and Elias were talking 
with Jesus. They " spake of his decease which he 
should accomplish at Jerusalem " Matthew and 
Mark tell us that Christ was transfigured before 
the three disciples. Luke says that " as he prayed, 
the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his 
raiment was white and glistening." These three 
disciples were permitted to look upon the glorified 
countenance of Jesus, and to see also Moses and 
Elias in their glorified bodies. While this scene 
serves to impress the three favored disciples, and 
through them the world, with the divinity and 
authority of Christ, as announced from the voice 
in the overshadowing cloud, "This is my beloved 
Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him " ; does 
it not also give to them, and through them, to the 
world, some idea of the nature and glory of the 
spiritual body of the saints ? Christ charged those 
disciples " to tell no man what things they had seen 
till the Son of man were risen from the dead," most 
intimately associating this scene with his resurrec- 



RESURRECTION. 1 39 

tion, and through that with their resurrection. 
What more rational explanation of this passage 
than that, so far, at least, as his countenance was 
concerned, Christ showed to the disciples his spir- 
itual, glorified body, a body of such glory that it 
made the very raiment glisten ; and that Moses 
and Elias, who had already received their resurrec- 
tion, appeared in their spiritual bodies to give some 
knowledge and assurance of the glorified body of 
the saints ? 

The view of the resurrection advocated, harmon- 
izes with some of the broad declarations of Scrip- 
ture. In the first sentence pronounced upon man, 
it is said, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
bread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out of 
it wast thou taken, for dust thou art and unto dust 
shalt thou return." Gen. 3 : 19. The language is 
as if the whole man was taken from the earth, and 
should return thither, obliterating the whole being 
of the man, except as it might exist in unconscious 
dust of the earth. This is not true of the soul, but 
may it not be absolutely true of the body ? That 
which is of the earth, earthy, shall return to the 
earth and remain there forever. Solomon reiterates 
this broad truth when he says, " desire shall fail; 
because man goeth to his long home, and the 
mourners go about the streets ; or ever the silver 
cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken at the 
fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern ; then 



I4O FROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

shall the dust return to the earth as it was ; and 
the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." EccL 
12:6, 7. David, speaking of the frailty of man, 
says, " His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his 
earth." 

Do not these passages, and others upon which 
we have commented, show conclusively that what 
we place in the grave, remains there ; that there is 
nothing there necessary to make up the spiritual 
body, and do they not preclude the very idea of 
bodily resurrection from the grave ? When Paul 
says that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the king- 
dom of God," some have tried to get over the res- 
urrection difficulty by assuming that as Paul did 
not say bones, that there will be a resurrection of 
the bones. This is too unphilosophical to be en- 
titled to a moment's credence. We think the 
more rational and Biblical view is that at natural 
death the man throws off this earthly body, and his 
spiritual body at once comes into use. As there 
is in some mysterious way the germs and energiz- 
ing forces in man, for the development of the phys- 
ical body, so also there may be in him the germs 
and energizing forces to produce the spiritual body, 
or there may be a spiritual body already developed, 
of which the physical is the semblance, in some way 
adhering to or enclosing it. Paul says "there is a 
spiritual body and there is a natural body," as 
though both already existed. 



RESURRECTION. 141 

Men often appeal to nature to illustrate and sub- 
stantiate the resurrection of a body from the grave, 
vegetation decaying in autumn, and coming forth 
in verdure in spring, the butterfly and moth and 
other insects in their chrysalis state. Nature much 
better illustrates it, if the soul takes on the resur- 
rection body at natural death, than it does if there 
be thousands of years intervening. There is some- 
thing in the tree, which sheds its faded flowers and 
leaves in autumn, that enables it to put forth its 
buds and bloom in spring. The vital energy re- 
mains in the tree. If the tree be dead, there is no 
verdure in the spring. Or if the seed be cast into 
the earth, the vitalizing force is there and causes 
the seed to germinate and grow. 

There is an identity between the caterpillar and 
the butterfly as it passes through its chrysalis state. 
Following out the analogy of nature, as Paul does 
in 1 Cor. 15 : 37, in regard to the grain, there is 
the development of the new body in close relation 
to the old one. Should the caterpillar be dissolved 
in its chrysalis state into nature's original ele- 
ments, it would never become a butterfly. So if 
the body, the " dust, returns to the earth as it 
was ; and the spirit to God who gave it," the 
analogy of nature would give little hope of a res- 
urrection body from the grave, in some future 
period. Moreover, if any physical elements are 
necessary to the spiritual body, it is certainly just 



142 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

as easy for the Divine Architect to construct that 
body when the natural body dies, as at any future 
period, and we think it vastly more consistent with 
the Scriptures and harmonious with the analogies 
of nature. 

The view of the resurrection advocated, avoids 
the difficulty involved in a simultaneous resurrec- 
tion in an indefinite future time. For there is a 
difficulty. Not that men wish to be skeptical, but 
when the body has been cremated, or devoured by 
wild beasts or fishes, eaten of worms or mouldered 
in the dust for centuries, it is difficult to see what 
there is to be raised. To get over the difficulty, 
men fail back on the power of God, as " nothing 
is impossible with Him." But it is doubtful 
whether God can reconcile all the absurdities of 
man. It avoids all necessity for any provisional 
body, as some have suggested, in order to bridge 
over the difficulty. It precludes all necessity of 
any intermediate state, which we have to interject 
into the Bible, when we assume a future general 
resurrection. 

A question, natural to thoughtful minds, and 
often asked, is, "What do you think is the condi- 
tion of men between death and the resurrection ?" 
" Where are they, and are they happy ? " If there 
is to be a simultaneous resurrection at the end of 
the world, the intermediate state becomes an im- 
portant element in man's existence. The thou- 



RESURRECTION. 



143 



sands of years that Abraham, David, Paul, and the 
hosts of mankind are to exist in that state, would 
be of sufficient interest to be a matter of revela- 
tion, and the revelation would be framed in a man' 
ner to recognize the truth of it, and we should 
expect to find allusions to it. But the Bible is en- 
tirely silent about it. It never intimates any such 
thing as such. It does speak of man's conscious 
existence immediately after death, and of the 
saints being happy with their Lord. By interject- 
ing a general resurrection of a physical body, and 
cutting off a piece of eternity, men get an inter- 
mediate state. But why ? Has not Paul, present 
and happy with his Lord, got along well with the 
body he has had for nearly two thousands of years, 
and if so, can he not for thousands more, and so on 
indefinitely, eternally ? In order to bridge over the 
period of an intermediate state, some consistently 
believe in the sleep of the dead, until a general 
resurrection. They find it logically necessary, in 
order to preserve consistency, assuming, as they 
do, a future general resurrection. But if God has 
provided a spiritual body to come into immediate 
use when the earthly one fails, it gives meaning to 
the phrase " eternal life " which Christ gives to 
every believer. 



144 TROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 



CHAPTER V. 

JUDGMENT. 

That man must give an account of himself to 
God, requires here no extended discussion. Solo- 
mon voiced the universal conviction when he ex- 
claimed, " I said in my heart, God shall judge the 
righteous and the wicked." And every Bible reader 
feels that Solomon sums up the teaching of Scrip- 
ture in his exhortation, " Let us hear the conclu- 
sion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his 
commandments : for this is the whole duty of man. 
For God shall bring every work into judgment, 
with every secret thing, whether it be good or 
whether it be evil." And the Apostle Paul gives 
the principle upon which the judgment proceeds 
and the verdict is rendered : " And thinkest thou 
this, O man, that judgest them which do such 
things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape 
the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the 
riches of his goodness and forbearance and long 
suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God 
leadeth thee to repentance ? But, after thy hard- 
ness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thy- 
self wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation 



JUDGMENT. I45 

of the righteous judgment of God ; who will ren- 
der to every man according to his deeds ; To 
them, who, by patient continuance in well doing, 
seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal 
life : But unto them that are contentious and do 
not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness ; 
indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, 
upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the 
Jew first, and also to the Gentile : But glory, 
honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good, 
to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile : For there 
is no respect of persons with God." Rom. 2 : 

The work of judgment is committed to Christ. 
" For neither doth the Father judge any man, but 
hath given all judgment to the Son." John 5 : 22. 
" And hath given him authority to execute judg- 
ment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel 
not at this," that is, that he is authorized to exe- 
cute judgment at present ; " for the hour is coming, 
in the which all that are in the graves shall hear 
his voice, and shall come forth : they that have 
done good, unto the resurrection of life ; and they 
that have done evil, unto the resurrection of dam- 
nation." This text, so often quoted as a proof of 
the resurrection of the body, has, we think, more 
reference to judgment. Christ is universal judge. 

Peter, preaching at Cesarea, asserts of Christ, 
that " he was ordained to be the judge of the 



I46 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

quick and dead." Acts 10:42. "In the day," 
says Paul, " when God shall judge the secrets of 
men, by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel." 
Rom. 2 : 16. Twice Paul affirms "that we must 
all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." 
In the closing of Revelation, Christ says, " Behold 
I come quickly ; and my reward is with me, to give 
every man according as his work shall be." Paul 
asserts that " God now commands men everywhere 
to repent, Because he hath appointed a day, in 
which he will judge the world in righteousness, by 
that man whom he hath ordained : whereof he hath 
given assurance to all men, in that he hath raised 
him from the dead." Acts 17: 31. Judgment is 
often spoken of in the Scriptures, under the figure 
of an earthly tribunal, and if we interpret the figure 
too literally, we shall be misled. The manner of 
procedure in Christ's judgment is very different 
from that of an earthly tribunal. The expression, 
the judgment seat of Christ, means more than that 
he will preside and decide the case according to 
principles of righteousness. Christ, as God mani- 
fest in the flesh, is the standard by which men will 
be judged. He is an embodiment and personifica- 
tion of moral law, truth, and righteousness. Our 
personal relation to him will decide our destiny. 
When the man is brought face to face with Christ, 
if the life be wicked, the conscience will feel con- 
demnation, and the man, like Judas, will go to his 



JUDGMENT. I47 

own place. If a man has lived a life of penitence 
and faith in Christ, the conscience will have its 
own approval, and a consciousness of Christ's ap- 
proval, and will come in heart nearer to Jesus than 
ever before. As the life has conformed to Christ's 
life, or has run counter to it, so will be the judgment. 
As the motives have been drawn from Christ, as 
men have acted for Christ's sake, so will be the im- 
press of character, and so the decisions of judgment. 
"Therefore, whosover heareth these sayings of 
mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a 
wise man who built his house upon a rock : And 
rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds 
blew, and beat upon that house : and it fell not : 
for it was founded upon a rock : And every one 
that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them 
not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built 
his house upon the sand : And the rain descended, 
and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat 
upon that house ; and it fell : and great was the 
fall of it." " He that gives a cup of cold water to 
a disciple because he is a disciple, shall not lose 
his reward." And he that suffers persecution for 
Christ's sake, great shall be his reward in heaven. 
In the judgment scene depicted in Matt. 25 : 31- 
40, the whole world is gathered into two classes, 
and the sentence passed according to their per- 
sonal relation to Christ. " Inasmuch as ye have 
done it unto one of the least of these my breth- 



I48 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

ren, ye have done it unto me." " Inasmuch as ye 
did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not 
to me." The teachings of Christ, the precepts, 
the doctrines, the promises, the warnings, will be 
the standard by which men will be judged. " I am 
come a light into the world, that whosoever be- 
lieveth on me, may not abide in the darkness. 
And if any man hear my sayings and keep them 
not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the 
world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth 
me and receiveth not my sayings, hath one that 
judgeth him ; the word that I spake, the same 
shall judge him in the last day." John 12 : 46-48. 

As men keep the sayings of Christ, so will they 
find their destiny. Paul, while longing "to be ab- 
sent from the body and to be at home with the 
Lord," said, " Wherefore, also, we make it our aim, 
whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing unto 
him. For we must all be made manifest before the 
judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive 
the things done in the body, according to what he 
hath done, whether it be good or bad." 2 Cor. 5 : 
9, 10. Christ at the judgment will be as a mirror 
in which we may see ourselves as we are, and thus 
be manifest in our own eyes, whether we have 
aimed to be well pleasing unto him or not, and so 
approval or guilt will fasten itself upon the con- 
science forever. 

In the light of this do we not see an explanation 



JUDGMENT. I49 

of Paul's assertion, "Do ye not know that the 
saints shall judge the world ?" The godly life of 
Christians makes manifest the deformity of char- 
acter in the wicked, and sends guilt to their con- 
sciences. Noah, by preparing an ark to save his 
house, condemned the world. 

Time of Judgment. 

This is too often decided by phrases referring to 
the coming of Christ, assuming that they mean a 
second bodily coming at the end of the world. But 
we have seen that these phrases do not mean that, 
but refer to something then near at hand, the 
parousia. (See Chapter III.) Consequently Matt. 
24, Mark 13, Luke 21, must be ruled out in decid- 
ing the question ; also passages with similar im- 
port, as 1 Thes. 4, latter part. Matthew 25 : 31 
and following, would seem to indicate it as at 
the end of the world. But are the righteous to be 
brought back from heaven and the wicked from 
hell to receive a formal sentence ? Why have they 
gone to their respective places, unless they have 
been already judged and assigned to the place and 
condition for which they were fitted? A critical 
examination of the passage shows that it cannot be 
taken literally. The language is in a sense para- 
bolic. May we not take the passage as a graphic 
description of a judgment scene, showing Christ to 
be the judge, the separation of the world into two 



I50 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

classes, and the principles upon which judgment 
will be made, and the eternal condition fixed ? In 
an important sense the Son of man does come at 
the death of every individual, when probation ends, 
and the soul is called into the presence of God. 

Teaching of Jesus. 

" For the Son of man shall come in the glory of 
his Father, with his angels, and then shall he re- 
ward every man according to his works. Verily I 
say unto you, there be some standing here who 
shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of 
man coming in his kingdom." Matt. 16: 27, 28. 
As this would take place while some then living 
and standing before him would still be alive, it 
cannot refer to the end of the world, but to the 
consummation of the Jewish age, at the destruction 
of Jerusalem, when Christ's kingdom would be fully 
inaugurated, and himself be the king and judge, 
and from henceforth to reward every man accord- 
ing to his works. The parable of the wheat and 
tares, recorded in Matt. 13, requires careful atten- 
tion, for it would seem to fix the judgment at the 
end of the world. When Christ had spoken several 
parables to the multitude at Capernaum, he sent 
them away and went into the house, and his disci- 
ples came unto him, saying, " explain unto us the 
parable of the tares of the field. He answered and 
said unto them, he that soweth the good seed is the 



JUDGMENT. I5I 

Son of man ; the field is the world ; the good seed 
are the children of the kingdom ; but the tares are 
the children of the wicked one. The enemy that 
sowed them is the devil ; the harvest is the end of 
the world ; and the reapers are the angels. As, 
therefore, the tares are gathered and burned in the 
fire ; so also shall it be in the end of this world. 
The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and 
they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that 
offend, and them which do iniquity. And shall 
cast them into a furnace of fire ; there shall be 
wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the 
righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of 
their Father." The word " world" in the 38th v. is 
translated from kosmos, meaning world as the dwell- 
ing-place of the race, while in the 39th and 40th vs. 
the word " world " is translated from ceon, meaning 
duration, the course or flow of time, in various 
relations as determined by the context, — put some- 
times for human life. Taking this natural mean- 
ing of the word, the passage shows that the end of 
this mortal life, the end of the world to us, is the 
time when it is to be determined whether we are 
to be as tares or wheat. The real meaning of the 
passage shows that judgment follows immediately 
on the end of probation. The parable of the labor- 
ers in the vineyard is to the same import. Matt. 
20: 1-16. "The kingdom of heaven is like unto 
a man that is an householder, who went out early 



I52 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard." 
" So when even was come the lord of the vineyard 
saith unto the steward, Call the laborers, and give 
them their hire, beginning from the last unto the 
first." The point to be noted is that the laborers 
wrought up to the time of settlement. So, also, in 
the parable of the talents. Matt. 25 : 14-30. The 
man delivered to his servants the talents, to one, 
five talents ; to another, two ; to another, one. 
" After a long time the lord of those servants com- 
eth and reckoneth with them." They occupied till 
the time of reckoning, when their reward was given 
them. The parable of the pounds teaches the same 
truth. Luke 19: 11-27. The ten servants who 
had received the one pound each, were to use that 
pound till the nobleman returned, and a settlement 
was made, and their reward assigned. This char- 
acteristic of the parables teaches that the judgment, 
the reckoning, takes place at the close of our 
earthly probation, when man must give an account 
of "the deeds done in the body." Else, if we rele- 
gate the judgment to a day in the distant future, 
does it not follow that there is probation after this 
life, and that man must be called to an account not 
only for the deeds done in the body, but for those 
also done out of the body ? We ask the reader's 
careful attention to the parable of the rich man 
and Lazarus. Luke 16: 19-31. "And it came to 
pass that the beggar died and was carried by the 



JUDGMENT. I53 

angels into Abraham's bosom." Resting in Abra- 
ham's bosom is a figure of rest in heaven. " The 
rich man also died, and was buried ; and in hell 
he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." Each 
were assigned their place immediately after death, 
and of course must have been judged to their re- 
spective places, or they would not have been sent 
there. Between them there was a great gulf fixed 
which they could never pass over. The rich man 
prayed to Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his 
five brethren who were yet living in the world, lest 
they also come into this place of torment. While 
we must not get more out of a parable than there is 
in it, we submit it to the candid reader, if what we 
have stated does not lie upon the face of the para- 
ble as the truth intended to be taught. When 
Christ said, " To-day shalt thou be with me in para- 
dise,'' it was the sentence that adjudged the peni- 
tent thief to paradise forever. And when Judas, 
conscience smitten at the betrayal of the Lord, 
went out and hanged himself, it was that he might 
go to his own place at once. 

Teaching and Expectation of the Writers 
of the Epistles and Revelation. 

To make the phrases the " revelation of Jesus 
Christ," the " appearing of Christ," and the like, 
refer so generally to a second coming of Christ at 
the end of the world, is manifestly incorrect, as will 



154 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

be seen by a careful examination of the original 
words. The same words in the original are trans- 
lated often manifested. 

It is a Christian sentiment, and a truth also, that 
at death Christ will be manifested to the saints as 
never before. The writers of the epistles looked 
forward to the time of this manifestation as the 
time when they should receive their reward. When 
Stephen was stoned to death, he looked up and saw 
the heavens opened and the Son of man standing 
on the right hand of God, and he prayed, " Lord 
Jesus, receive my spirit." Paul said, " For to me to 
live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if to live in 
the flesh, — if this shall bring fruit from my work, 
then what I shall choose I know not. But I am 
in a strait betwixt the two, having the desire to de- 
part, and to be with Christ ; for it is very far better ; 
yet to abide in the iesh is more needful for your 
sake." Phil, i : 21-24. The plain import of this 
language is, that as soon as his work was finished 
here, he would go to his reward, and be with Christ. 
So he said when daily expecting death at the hands 
of Nero, " For I am already being offered, and the 
time of my departure is come. I have fought a 
good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept 
the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for me the 
crown of righteousness, which the Lord the right- 
eous judge shall give to me at that day ; and not 
only to me, but also to all them that love his ap- 
pearing." 2 Tim. 4 : 6-8. 



JUDGMENT. I55 

The word translated departure is used of ships 
weighing anchor, and of prisoners being loosed 
from prison. He looked upon the day of his being 
loosed from the prison bonds of this life and taking 
his departure, as a ship weighs anchor and sails 
away, as that day when the Lord the righteous 
judge would give him a crown of righteousness. 
And not to him only, but to all whose hearts are 
knit to Jesus in sympathy and love, will he give 
a like crown, when they shall be loosed from earth, 
and Christ shall be manifest unto their spiritual 
vision. Paul charges Timothy "in the sight of 
God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the 
quick and the dead, and by his appearing and his 
kingdom; preach the word," etc. 2 Tim. 4: 1. 
The Greek construction shows that Christ is about 
to judge, on the point of judging. It was some- 
thing very soon to take place. This would be true, 
if he refers to the judgments at the destruction of 
Jerusalem. It is true continually if judgment 
takes place at death, or is taking place by the for- 
mation of character under the light of the gospel. 
Christ is about to judge those having spiritual life 
and those spiritually dead. This constitutes the 
strong reason why Timothy should " preach the 
word ; be instant in season, out of season ; reprove, 
rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine." 
Heb. 9 : 27, 28, is to the same import. "And in- 
asmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, 



I56 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

and after this cometh judgment ; so Christ also, 
having been once offered to bear the sins of many, 
shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them 
that wait for him, unto salvation." 

This passage intimates strongly that judgment 
follows hard upon death. It is condemnation to 
the wicked, but salvation to those whose hearts are 
waiting for Christ. The passage implies that " he 
shall appear" to the saints in a very different man- 
ner from what he will to the wicked. The passage 
does not assert that Christ will appear to the wicked 
at all, so that it should not be quoted to prove 
Christ's second coming at the end of the world. 
Peter speaks of the grace and salvation to be made 
known at the appearing, " the revelation of Jesus 
Christ." 1 Pet. 1 : 7, 13. " Beloved, think it not 
strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try 
you, as though some strange thing happened unto 
you; but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of 
Christ's sufferings ; that, when his glory shall be 
revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." 
I Pet. 4: 12, 13. "And when the chief shepherd 
shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that 
fadeth not away." 5 : 4. Peter looked for the 
consummation of blessedness at the revelation of 
Christ which would take place at death. John ex- 
presses his hope in such words as these : " Beloved, 
now are we the children of God, and it is not yet 
made manifest what we shall be. We know that, 



JUDGMENT. I57 

if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him ; for 
we shall see him even as he is." 1 John 3 : 2. Did 
not John expect this additional glory when his 
spiritual vision should open upon the manifestation 
of Christ ? If Paul, Peter, and John expected their 
rewards soon, it implies that their judgment was 
soon to take place, that it might be known what 
those rewards should be. This finds confirmation 
in Rev. 14: 13: " And I heard a voice from 
heaven, saying, Write, blessed are the dead who 
die in the Lord from henceforth ; yea, saith the 
spirit, that they may rest from their labors ; for 
their works follow with them." So, also, 22 : 
10-12: " Seal not up the words of the prophecy 
of this book ; for the time is at hand. He that is 
unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still ; and 
he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still ; and 
he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still ; 
and he that is holy, let him be made holy still. 
Behold, I come quickly ; and my reward is with 
me, to render to each man according as his work 
is." Are not thes6 passages an expression of the 
broad principle that the righteous enter at once 
upon their state of blessedness, and that the wicked 
are confirmed in their state of alienation from God, 
which is outer darkness forever ? 

In an important sense, judgment takes place in 
this world, prior to natural death. The destiny 
becomes fixed by the fixedness of moral character, 



I58 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

and by the nature of the penalty, which is death. 
Believers become confirmed in their love to Christ 
and abiding spiritual life, and unbelievers in their 
alienation from God and spiritual deadness. 

Christ said, "Now is the judgment of this 
world, now shall the prince of this world be cast 
out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will 
draw all men unto me." The antagonistic forces 
fixing men's destiny are already at work. When 
the infant Saviour was first taken into the temple, 
Simeon exclaimed, " This child is set for the fall 
and rising again of many in Israel : for a sign 
which shall be spoken against." Afterwards Jesus 
himself said, " For judgment am I come into this 
world, that they who see not, might see, and they 
who see might be made blind." Some are drawn 
by the power of the gospel to Christ, their attach- 
ment to him becomes stronger as the years go 
by, their character becomes more and more assimi- 
lated to the divine likeness. Their redemption 
comes to be a settled matter in their own con- 
viction. Others say in their hearts, "We will not 
have this man to reign over us." The enmity of 
their hearts increases with the increase of the num- 
ber of years. A character in opposition to Christ 
is developed and fixed. They have lived in dark- 
ness, and have approached very near the border of 
outer darkness. There needs no formal judgment 
to make it clear to them, that they belong on the 



JUDGMENT. I59 

left hand. Their judgment has virtually taken 
place. Death is the penalty for sin. " In the 
day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." 
"The wages of sin is death." It is spiritual death. 
A life of sin has confirmed this sentence. This 
spiritual deadness has already become inwrought 
. in the very being of the sinner. 

It is sometimes asserted that there must be a 
judgment day that God may vindicate his character 
and righteous judgment before an assembled uni- 
verse. Such reasoning implies that God will make 
known to each individual, just how He has treated 
every other individual, which is an absurdity, if 
not an impossibility. Besides, the Bible shows 
that the object of judgment is to determine re- 
wards and penalties, rather than to vindicate the 
character of God. It is also said that the judg- 
ment must be at the end of the world, in order 
that the extent of each man's influence may be 
seen, and thus a right judgment be determined. 
We reply, that Christ, the Omniscient Judge, can 
just as well look forward and see the extent of 
influence, as to look back, and can just as easily 
determine at the close of our* earthly career what 
would be the just award, as at a judgment day at 
the end of the world, even were an end of the 
world revealed to us. 

We may here inquire the meaning of the word 
" day," as used in connection with judgment. Does 



l6o PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

it mean that there is a special day of twenty-four 
hours in length fixed upon, or even one special 
time fixed, when all the inhabitants of the earth 
shall be judged ? The expressions found in the 
Bible, "the day of judgment," "the judgment of 
the great day," "the day of the Lord," "the great 
day of his wrath," and the like, have naturally led 
the mind, to think of it as one special day in the 
future. The manner of the judgment is not 
necessarily thus any more than the expressions of 
the punishment of the wicked in a "lake of fire," 
" and to be cast into hell, into the fire that shall 
never be quenched," denote the absolute method 
of the punishment by literal fire. The one im- 
presses the mind with the idea of punishment, the 
other with that of judgment. The wrong use of the 
article before the words "day" and "judgment" 
has served to produce this impression of a particular 
day fixed. There is a difference between the day, 
and a day ; the judgment, and judgment. The 
former points to some special day ; the latter is 
more indefinite. Peter said " thou art the Christ," 
that is, the special one promised. A Christ would 
imply that there might be other Christs. The fol- 
lowing passages are noted, where the article is 
used in English before the word "day," but not in 
the Greek : Matt. 1 1 : 22, 24 ; Matt. 12 : 36 ; Rom. 
2:16; 2 Pet. 2:952 Pet. 3:7; Jude 6. The 
passages denote judgment, rather than that it will 
be on a fixed day. 



JUDGMENT. l6l 

The phrase "ihe day of the Lord" is often in- 
correctly referred to as a judgment day at the end 
of the world. The meaning of the phrase is to be 
learned from the prophecy of Malachi, who proph- 
esied of the end of the Jewish and not the 
Christian age. He foretold the terrible calamities 
that would end that dispensation. " For behold 
the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all 
the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be 
stubble : and the day that cometh shall burn them 
up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave 
them neither root nor branch." Mai. 4. "And 
ye shall tread down the wicked : for they shall be 
ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that 
I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts." "Be- 
hold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the 
coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." 

This was fulfilled when Christ came in his in- 
carnation to end the Jewish dispensation and set 
up his kingdom. This interpretation is made cer- 
tain by the Saviour's saying that the Elijah spoken 
of is fulfilled in John the Baptist, the forerunner 
of Christ. Bearing in mind that the New Testa- 
ment writers had only the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures, we can well imagine that "the day of the 
Lord " would have a wonderful impression upon 
their minds, and we need not be surprised to find 
the phrase incorporated into their writings, in 
their speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem. 



1 62 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

Here there is some definite thing to be accom- 
plished, on some day or time spoken of, hence we 
should expect to find the definite article used be- 
fore the word "day." Note the following examples : 
Luke 17 : 30 ; 1 Cor. 1 : 8 ; 1 Cor. 5:552 Cor. 1 : 
14 ; 1 Thes. 5:252 Peter 3 : 10. "The day of the 
Lord will come as a thief in the night." 2 Peter 
3:12; Heb. 10 : 25 ; 1 John 4:17; Rev. 6:17. 

The word " day " is used in an indefinite manner, 
sometimes, as in Gen. 2:4. " In the day that the 
Lord made the earth and the heavens " ; " the 
day of trouble" ; "day of visitation" ; "Abraham 
rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was 
glad." Following the analogy, the day of judg- 
ment need not refer to one day for all to be judged, 
but mean rather the time when each shall be 
judged for himself. 

Christ spake in parables in order to make the 
truth more impressive ; so judgment is spoken of, 
under the form of an earthly tribunal, to impress 
the mind with the reality and certainty of it. In 
closing this chapter we may remark, that while in 
previous periods God judged men according to the 
light they, had, the parousia dispensation is em- 
phatically one of resurrection and judgment ; res- 
urrection from darkness and death, to light and 
life; of judgment in righteousness according to 
the light of Him who now " walketh in the midst 
of the seven golden candlesticks." 



THE APOCALYPSE. 1 63 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE APOCALYPSE. 

It is no object of the writer to make a com- 
mentary on the Apocalypse, or to unravel and 
make plain what has been the puzzle of the cen- 
turies. It is simply to give some hints which may 
be helpful, by showing to whom some of the sym- 
bols refer, and, if possible, assist the reader to take 
the right track, that, as he shall become better ac- 
quainted with the history of the times in which 
the book was written, he may better understand 
it. The diversity of opinion concerning the book 
makes grateful any attempt to throw light upon its 
contents. 

Date of Writing. 

Placing the date of the writing in the reign of 
Domitian, after the destruction of Jerusalem, and 
the terrible persecutions under Nero, the Roman 
emperor, has undoubtedly occasioned much fog to 
gather about the contents of the book in the minds 
of commentators, and caused the making of many 
an ingenious puzzle beyond the possibility of any 
but the writers themselves to unravel. The reason 
why it has puzzled so many is because they have 



164 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

fixed the date after the occurrence of the events 
referred to. Fixing the date prior to the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, perhaps near the beginning of 
the Neronian persecution, will greatly assist in 
making the book a revelation. Dr. J. M. McDon- 
ald, who commented on the life of John, unhesi- 
tatingly pronounced for the earlier date, as does 
Sir Isaac Newton, and Guericke, the church his- 
torian, and Dr. S chaff, and Canon Farrar, writing 
upon "Early Christianity." The later criticism 
generally inclines to the earlier date. The internal 
evidence from the book itself strongly confirms 
this opinion. Those who take the earlier date 
make the contents of the book refer to the Nero- 
nian persecution, and the destruction of Jerusalem 
and the persecutions which followed, up to the 
reign of Constantine, A. D. 306. Those who take 
the later date, make Revelation a running pro- 
phetic history of the Church to the end of time. 

The introduction to the book consists of chap. 
1 : 1-8. "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which 
God gave unto him, to show to his servants things 
which must shortly come to pass." Thus it is an- 
nounced in the very first verse that the things 
shown were soon to come to pass. If these things 
were to be strung upon a line thousands of years 
in length, they would not very soon come to pass. 
Nor is it said that they would begin to come to 
pass, thus allowing a long time for them all to 



THE APOCALYPSE. I 65 

be fulfilled. But all the things shown were soon 
to come to pass. It is also said, " Blessed is he 
that readeth, and they that hear the words of this 
prophecy, and keep those things which are written 
therein ; for the time is at hand." The whole 
structure of this sentence, as well as the direct 
assertion, goes to show that the things written 
were soon to come to pass. 

In addressing the seven churches it is separately 
said, " Behold I come quickly " ; " If therefore 
thou shalt not watch, I will come as a thief." In 
verses 1:19, 2 : 10, 3 : 10, the Greek word mello 
is used, which denotes that the action is about to 
take place. When the angel, commissioned to 
show John the things that must shortly come to 
pass, had delivered his messages in the visions 
John saw, almost the last thing he says is, " These 
sayings are faithful and true ; and the Lord God of 
the holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his 
servants the things which must shortly be done. 
Behold I come quickly : blessed is he that keepeth 
the sayings of the prophecy of this book." Rev. 
22 : 6, 7. When John was about to worship the 
angel, he forbade him and added, " Seal not the 
sayings of the prophecy of this book : for the time 
is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust 
still ; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still ; 
and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still ; 
and he that is holy, let him be holy still," "and be- 



I 66 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

hold I come quickly," is reiterated, and again, verse 
20, " Surely, I come quickly." These strong as- 
sertions at the beginning and close of the book 
would seem to settle it forever that the things con- 
tained in the book were soon to come to pass. 
They were so soon to take place that there was no 
need to seal the book, because the seals must so 
soon be broken. 

If we place the date of the book near the com- 
mencement of the first great persecution which 
raged under Nero, and look at the events as they 
occurred for a few years, we shall find an easy and 
natural solution of much of the Apocalypse. Not 
that we can understand every part of the symbols 
employed in detail, but we can gather something 
of each symbol as a whole ; and if the book is a 
revelation, it is to be understood, and not to be to 
us a riddle for every one to guess, with none able 
to say who has rightly guessed. 

The Events. 

The disciples of Christ had become numerous, 
scattered through Palestine, Asia Minor, Rome, 
and other parts of Europe. More than a quarter of 
a century had elapsed since the Saviour on Mount 
Olivet had predicted the overthrow of the temple. 
Many of those who worshipped Christ as divine, 
and obeyed him as their King, still observed the 
Mosaic law, and went up to the temple to worship 



THE APOCALYPSE. 1 67 

with other Jews. The Mosaic and Christian dis- 
pensations were intermingled or running parallel, 
putting a double burden on the devout Jewish 
Christian. But the time was hastening when this 
must end by the destruction of Jerusalem, and 
with it the temple and temple worship ; when the 
nation which had crucified the Lord of Glory 
should meet its doom. Things were fast ripening 
for it. The hostile Jews had been a scourge to 
the followers of Christ. The scourge was already 
in process of preparation for the Jews. Rome had 
lost its integrity. Its pristine glory was gone. 
Nero was emperor, led to the throne through blood 
by Agrippina, his mother, who stopped not for 
murder if she might but accomplish her object. 

He in his baseness cast her away, and finally 
succeeded in plotting and securing her murder. 
He murdered his own brother. His character was 
such that if ever the appellation of beast could be 
given to any human being, he might well lay a 
pre-eminent claim to it. To gratify a morbid de- 
sire, he set fire to Rome, about A. D. 64, when a 
large part of the city became a heap of ashes. 
The suspicion of the citizens was upon him as 
the author. To avert the suspicion, he basely 
charged the crime upon the Christians. Then 
arose the first fiery persecution against them. 
They were made to endure the severest sufferings. 
Women were sewed up in skins of wild beasts and 



l6S PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

thrown to the dogs to be mangled till death should 
come to their relief. Others had their clothing 
first covered with pitch, and then set on fire. The 
hatred of the people was so turned against them, 
that no torture they could invent was too great to 
satisfy their madness. From November, A. D. 
64, to June, 68, three years and a half, the fires of 
persecution raged with fury. At the latter date, 
Nero, forsaken, hated, hunted, fled to the suburbs 
of Rome, and full of fear and cowardice, committed 
suicide. He died like a detested dog. He stands 
as the representative head of the pagan persecut- 
ing power. Paul called him " the lion." 2 Tim. 
4:17. He may well be called the beast of the 
Apocalypse. Much of the language and many of 
the symbols in Revelation point most directly to 
him, and the pagan power of which he was the 
representative head at the time of the writing. 

In the mean time there was trouble in the East. 
The Jewish provinces were under the dominion of 
Rome. The Jews were oppressed. They hated the 
Romans, and many of the cities and provinces had 
revolted. Vespasian was sent at the head of the 
Roman army to quell the revolt. Gessius Florus, 
who well deserves to be called a little beast, was 
appointed procurator, A. D. 65, over the Jewish 
provinces in the East. The first overt Jewish re- 
bellion was under him. The war broke out A. D. 
66. It was three years and a half, from the time 



THE APOCALYPSE. 1 69 

he began his dreadful work in Judea, to September, 
A. D. 70, when the city and temple perished in 
flames. These were the days of " wars and rumors 
of wars," of suffering and bloodshed. After the 
death of Nero, Vespasian was called to Rome, and 
Titus his son became the head of the army. As 
he subdued the provinces, he drew near to Jerusa- 
lem. For four months his army besieged that city. 
The sufferings of those in the city were terrible. 
So great was their hunger that it is on record that 
a mother ate her own child. So intense was their 
hunger that, if they could not steal, they would 
fight for morsels of food. Then were fulfilled the 
Saviour's words uttered on Olivet, " For then shall 
be great tribulation, such as was not since the be- 
ginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever 
shall be." Josephus reckons 97,000 captives in 
the Jewish wars, and the number of those who 
perished during the siege at 1,100,000; and the 
number who perished in the whole war he puts at 
1,337,490. Prisoners were taken to the number of 
101,700. 

The Christians, as they watched and saw the Ro- 
man army approaching and surrounding the city, 
withdrew and crossed the Jordan, taking refuge in 
Pella in Perea, where they were saved from the rav- 
ages of the Roman army, and the terrible sufferings 
that fell upon them in Jerusalem. Hardly could 
there have been a more complete fulfilment of 



170 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

Christ's discourse to the four disciples on Mount 
Olivet, than the history of these few years affords. 
These Jewish wars were already sounding the 
death knell to the temple worship. These suffer- 
ings were the dying groans of the old dispensa- 
tion, the travailing pains of the new, when the 
kingdom of God should stand forth as the one reli- 
gion adapted for all time and for all spiritual wants. 
This was the conflict with the Jewish power, 
while the conquest with the Pagan power was not 
yet over. From the reign of Nero to that of Con- 
stantine, the first Christian emperor, A. D. 306, 
we count ten or more emperors under whose reign 
the fires of persecution burned. Some of them 
were terrible in their hatred towards Christians. 
Among the worst persecutors, we name Domitian, 
Decius, Diocletian, Galerius, the two latter most 
violent. To invent modes of torture would seem 
to have taxed the ingenuity of men and devils to 
the utmost. Concerning their work, one has well 
said, " Never was such a regular and systematic 
attempt made, in Satanic madness, to utterly ex- 
tinguish the gospel." For the Christians amid 
these eventful times, the Apocalypse was written. 

The Key. 

If we try to unlock the Apocalypse with the 
wrong key, we shall be let into a dark room, or 
at least into one neither light nor dark ; but with 



THE APOCALYPSE. 171 

the right key, we may unlock the meaning, so as 
to get the force and benefit of what is written, 
though we may not understand all the symbolism 
in detail. 

Let it be borne in mind that the two dispensa- 
tions were yet to some degree running parallel. 
Christ, while preaching the "gospel of the king- 
dom," observed the Jewish rites, so did the disci- 
ples. Nor had they yet ceased to do it. The 
Jewish economy was to be done away, the kingdom 
was to be established. The death-agonies of the 
one and the birth-pains of the other were yet to 
be endured, so far as the disciples were concerned. 
The key to the Apocalypse is, to consider it an 
expansion and fulfilment of Christ's discourse to 
Peter, James, John, and Andrew on Olivet, as re- 
corded in Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21. 

As Malachi was the last of the prophets, it seems 
fitting that he should prophesy of the closing of 
that dispensation and the ushering in of the new. 
Through him swift judgments are pronounced on 
faithless Jews. In the last chapter the end is fore- 
told, and the rising of the " Sun of Righteous- 
ness." " For behold the day cometh that shall 
burn as an oven ; and all the proud, yea, all that 
do wickedly, shall be as stubble : and the day that 
cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of 
Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor 
branch." "Behold I will send you Elijah, the 



172 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

prophet, before the coming of the great and dread- 
ful day of the Lord." Christ takes up this pre- 
diction and enlarges upon it, as recorded in the 
chapters above noted. Any one familiar with the 
history of the early days of Christianity, will see 
in it a very striking fulfilment of these predictions. 
Christ said, "This generation shall not pass away 
till all these things be fulfilled." Some of them 
whom Jesus addressed lived to see those eventful 
years which witnessed the overthrow of Jerusalem, 
and the kingdom of Christ inaugurated as the one 
system of religion. 

To understand the Apocalypse, we need to have 
in view the purpose for which it was written. It 
is not a prophetic compendium of church history, 
but rather, as the peroration of a sermon is to en- 
force what is taught in the sermon, so the Apoca- 
lypse is placed at the close of the New Testa- 
ment Scriptures, to encourage the disciples in 
obedience to the faith. It has a first and special 
application to the disciples, who were very soon to 
endure, perhaps already suffering, the terrible per- 
secutions under Nero, called the beast, and the 
Jewish wars, which culminated in the destruction 
of Jerusalem and the Jewish economy. 

It also finds an application in all subsequent 
trials and persecutions which the disciples might 
be called to endure. It enforces the great princi- 
ple that it shall go well with the righteous, but ill 



THE APOCALYPSE. I 73 

with the wicked. It shows that however dark the 
surroundings, or severe the sufferings, be they from 
persecution or other causes, they that are loyal to 
Christ and endure to the end shall gain a glorious 
victory ; while Satan and all enemies to Christ 
shall meet with overwhelming ruin. It serves for 
all the future, to admonish disciples against error 
and faithlessness ; it urges to fidelity in duty, and 
encourages to victory in all spiritual conflicts with 
the powers of darkness, by the hope of a crown of 
life. 

It also must be borne constantly in mind that 
much of the language in the Apocalypse consists 
in very bold figures. Symbolism is necessarily so. 
The basis of a figure is always true, but the figure 
itself, interpreted literally, is not true. While great 
truths underlie the language used, much allowance 
must be made for the drapery and the making up 
of a complete picture. Such parts can have no 
interpretation. The mistake in making our inter- 
pretations too fine spun may be illustrated by the 
manner of interpretation of an eminent commen- 
tator, long since gone to his rest. A lamb in the 
Old Testament is a type of Christ. As lambs have 
tallow from which candies are made, so the tallow 
of the typical lamb is a type of Christ as the light 
of the world. In the parable of the man who fell 
among thieves, in going down from Jerusalem to 
Jericho, and the good Samaritan who rescued him, 



174 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

and gave the host two shillings for taking care of 
the unfortunate man, the same commentator is at a 
loss to determine whether the two shillings signify 
the Old and New Testaments, or the two ordi- 
nances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. This 
is altogether too fine. 

The parables of the Prodigal Son and the Rich 
Man and Lazarus, when interpreted literally, lead 
from the truth, but interpreted freely, they forcibly 
impress the truth. So in the Apocalypse, if we 
interpret the symbolism too literally, we get into 
the mist ; but getting upon the line of the truth, 
and without attempting to find a meaning in all 
the subordinate parts of the symbols, we shall see 
the truth most graphically expressed. We say we 
see a man walking on the street, yet the drapery 
that encloses the body is the most we see ; nor is 
the body the real man ; it is soul, enclosed by both 
body and drapery. So the symbols enclose the 
truth, and we should not seek too much in what 
may be mere drapery. 

This brings us to consider the main body of the 
book. We shall only attempt to give a brief analy- 
sis, putting the reader on the line of the truth, 
hoping it may assist him in the study of it. 

John " was in the isle called Patmos, for the 
word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus." 
The form of expression does not necessarily indi- 
cate that he was banished to that place, but he 



THE APOCALYPSE. I 75 

might have gone there, directed by the Spirit of 
God, to receive the word of God, and to give tes- 
timony of Jesus. The first thing shown him is 
the parousia of Jesus, — his personal presence 
among the churches. John was in the Spirit on 
the Lord's day, and sees one like unto the Son of 
man, walking in the midst of the seven golden 
candlesticks. Chap. 1 : 9-20. What he sees he 
is to write and send it unto the seven churches of 
Asia. The message is to be sent to the seven 
churches, not because these seven need to be ad- 
'monished more than others, but seven is a number 
which in the Scriptures shows completeness, hence 
all through the Apocalypse the symbols are ar- 
ranged according to the number seven. John was 
to send the message delivered to him unto Ephe- 
sus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadel- 
phia, and Laodicea. These seven messages are to 
be taken as a whole, and not simply as a particular 
warning to each church ; and together they con- 
stitute a mirror for the churches, not only then, 
but for all future time, in which they may see 
themselves and correct their conduct. 

Some things are commended, and for other 
things the churches are admonished and exhorted. 
A church adopting all those things commended 
and approved, would constitute a model church. 
Those things for which they are admonished con- 
stitute the dangerous things to a church. Several 



Lj6 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

of the churches are called upon to repent speedily, 
showing that penitence is a characteristic of a 
true church. To the church of Ephesus it was 
said, " I have somewhat against thee because thou 
hast left thy first love." The church of Laodicea 
is sharply admonished for being lukewarm, showing 
that fervent love to Christ is the normal condition 
of a church, and essential to prosperity. The 
church at Pergamos was admonished, because some 
held false doctrine, showing it to be all-important 
to have true doctrine, forever refuting that per- 
nicious sentiment so prevalent, that it makes no 
difference what a man believes, if he is only sin- 
cere. The church in Thyatira was admonished for 
laxity of discipline, showing the need of right con- 
duct. The church in Philadelphia is commended 
in all things, " for thou hast a little strength, and 
hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name," 
and to it is said, "behold, I have set before thee 
an open door, and no man can shut it," indicating 
the condition of success. And the motive held 
before them is " Be thou faithful unto death, and 
I will give thee a crown of life," and "to eat of the 
tree of life in the paradise of God " ; " to eat of 
the hidden manna"; "to be clothed with white 
raiment " ;"to be a pillar in the temple of God " ; 
and to sit with Christ on the throne. The exhor- 
tation to each church is, " He that hath an ear, 
let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the 



THE APOCALYPSE. I 77 

churches." Here then is a mirror in which the 
churches of that day could see themselves, and 
suitable for all time. 

The fourth and fifth chapters record John's prep- 
aration to see things in the near future, in the 
opening of the seven seals. He beholds a door 
opened into heaven and beholds the throne of God 
and Him that sat upon it, and sees those before the 
throne worshipping and casting their crowns before 
the throne, saying, " Thou art worthy, O Lord, to 
receive glory and honor and power ; for thou hast 
created all things, and for thy pleasure they are 
and were created." God is about to bring terrible 
times upon the earth ; sufferings such as never had 
been, neither would be again. To prepare him and 
the disciples for such scenes, John sees a book in 
heaven. In the book, held in the right hand of 
him who sits on the throne, are sealed up the 
judgments which are soon to come on the earth. 
He sees the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Christ, as 
the only one able and worthy to open the book. 
He sees a great multitude of the redeemed, saying 
with a loud voice, " Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and 
strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing " This 
vision is eminently suited to inspire confidence in 
the saints. Though persecutions might rage, yet 
Christ reigns and shall triumph and a great host 
of redeemed ones be gathered home to heaven, 



IjS PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

even " ten thousand times ten thousand and thou- 
sands of thousands." 

In the sixth chapter is recorded the opening of 
the seals. The first seal is opened, and "behold a 
white horse ; and he that sat on him had a bow ; 
and a crown was given unto him ; and he went 
forth conquering, and to conquer." This is another 
assurance to the disciples that Christ's cause shall 
triumph. Another seal is opened and a red horse 
appears ; war, with its desolations. Another seal 
opened and a black horse ; famine. Another seal, 
and a pale horse ; pestilence. These things are 
terribly significant of the condition of things under 
Nero's reign, and accompanying the destruction of 
Jerusalem. Many of the saints suffered martyrdom. 
But lest they should become disheartened, the fifth 
seal is opened, and there were seen "under the 
altar the souls of them that were slain for the word 
of God, and for the testimony which they held." 
"And white robes were given to every one of them." 
Then the sixth seal is opened, and " there was a 
great earthquake ; and the sun became black as 
sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood : 
And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as 
a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is 
shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven de- 
parted as a scroll when it is rolled together ; and 
every mountain and island were moved out of their 
places. And the kings of the earth, and the great 



THE APOCALYPSE. I 79 

men, and the rich men, and the chief captains and 
the mighty men, and every bond-man, and every 
free-man, hid themselves in the dens and in the 
rocks of the mountain; and said to the mountains 
and the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face 
of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the 
wrath of the Lamb : for the great day of his wrath 
is come, and who shall be able to stand ? " This 
is John's way of reiterating what Jesus told the 
four disciples on Olivet. " Immediately after the 
tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, 
and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars 
shall fall from heaven. And then shall appear the 
sign of the Son of man in heaven ; and then shall 
all the tribes of the earth mourn, and shall see the 
Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with 
power and great glory." Matt. 24 : 29, 30. Peter, 
who heard the same discourse, reiterates it in such 
language as this : " But the day of the Lord will 
come as a thief in the night ; in the which the 
heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the 
elements shall melt with fervent heat ; the earth 
also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt 
up." . . . " Looking for and hasting unto the com- 
ing of the day of God, wherein the heavens being 
on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall 
melt with fervent heat ? But according to his 
promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, 
wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Pet. 3:10, 12, 



I SO PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

13. That this passage teaches no physical catas- 
trophe of the earth and the heavenly bodies, at the 
end of the gospel age, but rather refers to the com- 
motion incident to the change from the Jewish to 
the gospel age, is evident from the fact that Peter 
admonishes them to a holy life because it might 
come in their day. " Wherefore, beloved, seeing 
that ye look for these things, give diligence that 
ye maybe found in peace, without spot, and blame- 
less in his sight." 

It is evident, also, by the way Peter refers to 
Paul's epistles, " speaking in them of these things ; 
wherein are some things hard to be understood, 
which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest, as they 
do also the other Scriptures, unto their own de- 
struction." The Jews not only wrested the way 
of salvation by faith to their own destruction, but 
" these things," viz., the change from the Jewish 
to the gospel economy, which Paul had spoken of 
in his epistles, they had wrested to their own de- 
struction. Paul had nowhere spoken in his epistles 
of the destruction of the heavens and the earth. 
Peter speaks of the change from the Jewish to the 
gospel age as a "day of judgment and destruction 
of ungodly men." It was such to the Jewish nation 
when a million and a quarter of people perished in 
their unbelief. Peter speaks of three different 
stages of religious light under the name of " heavens 
and earth." He contrasts the heavens and the 



THE APOCALYPSE. i8l 

earth of the antediluvians with the heavens and 
the earth of the Jews, and as the one perished by 
water, so the other is reserved for fire. It was 
fire indeed, the fires of war and famine and literal 
fire, which swallowed up their temple. Then suc- 
ceeds the " new heavens and a new earth " of the 
gospel age. Besides, at the commencement of this 
remarkable passage, Peter says he writes this and 
the former epistle also as a remembrancer of those 
things that the prophets and apostles had said 
should come to pass in the last days of the Jewish 
age. Nowhere had they spoken of the destruction 
of the heavens and the earth. But Malachi had 
portrayed in vivid language the closing of the 
Mosaic economy. Christ foretold it on Olivet; the 
apostles had preached it. 

Christ admonished his disciples to "watch; for 
ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." 
Peter reiterates it. " But the day of the Lord will 
come as a thief in the night." And his last ex- 
hortation is, " ye, therefore, beloved, knowing these 
things beforehand, beware lest, being carried away 
with the error of the wicked, ye fall from your own 
steadfastness." These considerations leave hardly 
a doubt that this whole passage, vivid and strong 
as the language is, finds its fulfilment in the closing 
scenes of the old economy. 

What shall sustain the disciples amid the perse- 
cutions, famine, and calamities that were coming 



I 82 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

upon the earth ? John tells in the seventh chap- 
ter. Under the symbol of four angels holding back 
the four winds, that they should not hurt the earth ; 
there comes forth another angel to seal the ser- 
vants of God, twelve thousand from each of the 
twelve tribes of Israel. Here is a definite number, 
put for an indefinte, showing that there would be 
a multitude of the Jews sealed of the Spirit and 
saved. " After this John beheld, and lo, a great 
multitude, which no man could number, of all na- 
tions and kindreds, and people and tongues, stood 
before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed 
with white robes, and palms in their hands ; and 
cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our 
God that sitteth upon the throne and unto the 
Lamb." This denotes the great multitude saved 
from the gentile world. What could better cheer 
and sustain the faith of the disciples than such 
visions portraying such glorious triumph ? 

At the beginning of the eighth chapter we have 
the opening of the seventh seal, and under this 
seal we have the seven angels sounding the seven 
trumpets. The sounding of the seven trumpets 
occupies the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh 
chapters. We must understand this, not as pro- 
gressive, but reiterative and expansive. The sev- 
enth seal and seven trumpets cover the same 
ground as the six seals, depicting more graphically 
the sufferings which cluster about Rome during the • 



THE APOCALYPSE. 1 83 

Neronian persecution, and about Jerusalem at the 
time of its destruction, and the Jewish wars which 
preceded it. As the angels are sounding the 
trumpets expressive of the woes to come upon the 
earth, the saints are not left without their sources 
of comfort and encouragement. 

In the eleventh chapter John is commanded to 
measure the temple of God, and assurance is given 
that they that worship therein shall not be hurt; 
"if any will hurt them he must in this manner be 
killed." Two witnesses are spoken of who "shall 
prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore 
days clothed in sackcloth." This is three years 
and a half, just about the length of the time of the 
Neronian persecution, and also about the length of 
the Jewish wars. Who shall say positively who 
these two witnesses were ? May we not under- 
stand them to be Peter and James ? Paul calls 
them with John the pillar disciples. They certainly 
were faithful witnesses of Christ at Jerusalem and 
other places, and may well stand as representatives 
of fidelity to Christ. Though slain by persecutors, 
they triumphed. They are seen in the vision to 
stand up again. " And they heard a great voice 
from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. 
And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud ; and 
their enemies beheld them." How significant of 
glorious triumph ! In verse seven is seen the " beast 
that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit, who shall 



I 84 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

make war against them, and shall overcome them, 
and kill them." This well describes Nero, shown 
to be the beast, as we shall see further on. "And 
when the seventh angel sounded, there were great 
voices in heaven, saying, The kingdom of this world 
is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his 
Christ ; and he shall reign for ever and ever." This 
is significant of the fall of Jerusalem and of the 
temple and temple worship, the end of the Mosaic 
dispensation, and the full inauguration of the king- 
dom of which Daniel and Isaiah prophesied, which 
John the Baptist said "was at hand," which was 
meant when Jesus "went preaching the gospel of 
the kingdom," and when he said, "This gospel of 
the kingdom must be preached in all the world 
for a witness unto all nations, then shall the end 
come." The vision ends with a grand jubilee in 
heaven over the triumph of Christ's kingdom. 

The twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth chapters 
are to be taken together. The visions are laid in 
the same region of history as the former ones, and 
to the same end. In chapter twelve the sun-clad 
woman represents the church of Christ, the red 
dragon represents the pagan power, Rome the 
mystic Babylon as its head. The dragon made 
war with the woman, and to " her was given two 
wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the 
wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished 
for a time, and times and half a time, from the face 



THE APOCALYPSE. 1 85 

of the serpent." This three years and a half de- 
notes the time of the Neronian persecution. The 
wings denote God's protection, and suggest the 
refuge in Pella, to which Christians resorted for 
safety in those bloody days when Jerusalem was 
destroyed. The casting down of the great dragon 
may denote the overthrow of Nero as the repre- 
sentative of the pagan power, and also the more 
complete overthrow of the pagan power at the end 
of the reign of that terrible persecutor Diocletian, 
when Constantine, the first Christian emperor, as- 
cended the throne. 

In the thirteenth chapter there is a more specific 
vision of Nero as the beast, rising up out of the 
sea. "And they worshipped the dragon which 
gave power unto the beast ; and they worshipped 
the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast ? who 
is able to make war with him? And there was 
given unto him a mouth speaking great things and 
blasphemies ; and power was given unto him to 
continue forty and two months." This is the 
length of the persecution under his reign. The 
character given to the beast wonderfully accords 
to the real character of Nero. " Let him that hath 
understanding count the number of the beast ; for 
it is the number of a man; and his number is six 
hundred threescore and six" (666). Here resort 
is had to designating a name by numerals. These 
numerals in the Hebrew designate Nero Caesar. 



I 86 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

John desired to tell the disciples whom he meant, 
but dare not mention his name outright, lest he 
might compromise his own and their safety, so he 
calls on them to use their wisdom in deciphering 
the name: "Here is wisdom." "And behold 
another beast cometh up out of the earth ; and he 
had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a 
dragon." This may refer to Vespasian, who led the 
Roman army in the Jewish wars, and sought to 
bring all into subjection to the pagan power, and 
so prolong the power of the beast. (See Canon 
Farrar, " Early Christianity," Apocalypse.) Or it 
may possibly refer to Gessius Florus, proconsul 
over the Jewish provinces. His whole conduct 
showed that his great object was to give life to the 
Roman power, of which Nero, the beast, was the 
representative. 

In chapter fourteen a vision is seen on Mount 
Zion. This complements those seen in the sun 
and by the seaside in chapters eleven and twelve. 
In those is seen the power of the enemy and the 
suffering of the saints. This on Mount Zion shows 
the deliverance and triumph of the saints, and the 
overthrow and punishment of their enemies. John 
sees those on Mount Zion "who follow the Lamb 
whithersoever he goeth," a great multitude upon 
whose foreheads was written the name of the Lamb. 
He heard them as with their harps they " sing the 
new song before the throne." 



THE APOCALYPSE. 1 87 

The scene is one of grand triumph to the saints, 
as they behold the downfall of their enemies, when 
" there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is 
fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made 
all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her 
fornication." This denotes the fall of Rome, the 
mystic Babylon, the pagan power. Those belong- 
ing to mystic Babylon are " tormented with fire and 
brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and 
in the presence of the Lamb." In this vision of 
the Son of man on the white cloud, with a sharp 
sickle, and the angels with sickles, is seen the com- 
plete triumph of Christ over his enemies. This 
graphic description is not intended to show the 
closing scenes of this earth, the final harvest, but 
rather the issue of condition as it is between the 
faithful followers of the Lamb and their persecut- 
ing enemies ; having special application for the en- 
couragement of Christians under the first great 
persecution, but applicable also for the comfort and 
encouragement of Christians under like circum- 
stances in all the future. 

In chapter fifteen John sees in heaven the seven 
angels with the seven last plagues, and to each of 
the angels is given a vial of God's wrath which he; 
is to pour out. This symbol of the seven plagues 
and vials extends through the sixteenth chapter ; 
the two chapters are, therefore, to be taken to- 
gether. The vision portrays the persecutions under 



iSS PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

Nero, and the Jewish wars culminating in the de- 
struction of Jerusalem. It portends calamities such 
as had never before been witnessed on the earth. 
But what shall become of the saints ? John be- 
holds a "sea of glass, mingled with fire ; and them 
that had gotten the victory over the beast, and 
over his image, and over his mark, and over the 
number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, 
having the harps of God. And they sing the song 
of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the 
Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, 
Lord God Almighty ; just and true are thy ways, 
thou King of saints." This is a glorious assurance 
of the protection and safety of the saints. In chap- 
ter sixteen is an account of the angels pouring out 
the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. 
These vials are symbols of dire calamities and fear- 
ful sufferings. In verse 2 reference is made to those 
who had the mark of the beast, pointing to Nero. 
" The fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat 
of the beast ; and his kingdom was full of darkness ; 
and they gnawed their tongues for pain." This is 
strikingly significant of the moral and political con- 
dition of Rome at that time. "The sixth angel 
poured out his vial on the great river Euphrates, 
that the way of the kings of the east might be pre- 
pared." This points to the east as the scene of 
conflict, — to the Jewish wars. Three unclean 
spirits came out of the mouth of the dragon and 



THE APOCALYPSE. 1 89 

out of the mouth of the beast, and " go forth unto 
the kings of the earth, to the whole world, to gather 
them to the battle of that great day of God Al- 
mighty." 

John seems to have in mind what the Prophet 
Malachi says, "Behold I will send you Elijah be- 
fore the coming of the great and dreadful day of 
the Lord." Mai. 4: 5. The coming of John the 
Baptist, who is the Elijah, was to be the sign of 
the coming of the great day which would end the 
old dispensation. He also has in mind the warning 
given on Olivet to watch, because that day should 
come upon them as a thief. " Behold I come as a 
thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth 
his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his 
shame." " And he gathered them together into a 
place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." 
Megiddo was a part of the great plain of Esdraelon, 
north of Jerusalem. This indicates the vicinity of 
the place where the Jewish wars were carried on 
with great slaughter before the final catastrophe 
in the overthrow of Jerusalem. The seventh angel 
poured out his vial and there followed the calami- 
ties so graphically described in verses 17-21. It is 
the fulfilment, we think, of Luke 21 : 22-26. " For 
these be the days of vengeance, that all things 
which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto 
them that are with child, and to them that give 
suck, in those days ! for there shall be great dis- 



I9O PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

tress in the land, and wrath upon the people. And 
they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall 
be led away captive into all nations ; and Jerusa- 
lem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until 
the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there 
shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and 
in the stars ; and upon the earth distress of na- 
tions, with perplexity ; the sea and the waves 
roaring. Men's hearts failing them for fear, and 
for looking after those things that are coming on 
the earth ; for the powers of heaven shall be 
shaken." 

The remaining six chapters must be taken to- 
gether. In them Rome, the pagan power, and 
Jerusalem, the holy city, are contrasted. In the 
first four chapters, we have Rome, the seat of the 
beast, the mystic Babylon, the overthrow, and final 
wretched condition of the enemies of Christ, with 
the welfare of the saints incidentally thrown in ; 
while in the last two chapters, referring to Jerusa- 
lem as the Zion of God, and under the figure of 
the New Jerusalem, the burden of thought is the 
glorious condition of the saints, with the miserable 
condition of the wicked incidentally thrown in. 
Keeping this simple analysis in mind will greatly 
help to understand it. 

In the seventeenth chapter, Rome, the seat of 
the beast, is depicted as a great harlot. Her sway 
over other nations is described. Upon her fore- 



THE APOCALYPSE. 19 1 

head was a name written : " Mystery, Babylon the 
great, the mother of harlots, and abominations of 
the earth!' " The woman was drunken with the 
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the mar- 
tyrs of Jesus." This is descriptive of Rome, not 
only under Nero, but also under Domitian, Decius, 
Diocletian, and Galerius, who were most violent 
persecutors These are referred to in verse 7 and 
following : " And there are seven kings : five are 
fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come ; 
and when he cometh, he must continue a short 
space. And the beast that was, and is not, even 
he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth 
into perdition." 

If we commence reckoning at Augustus, Nero 
would be about the fifth ; the others were to come. 
The language would indicate that they would reign 
but a short time. Some would be of like spirit 
of Nero, the beast, and some would not. This was 
the exact state of things up to the time of Con- 
stantine. Diocletian and Galerius were violent 
persecutors. " Never was such a regular and sys- 
tematic attempt made, in Satanic madness, to ut- 
terly extinguish the gospel." "These have one 
mind, and shall give their power and strength 
unto the beast." They sought to carry out what 
Nero had begun. "These shall make war with 
the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them." 
This was true to the letter. Their reign ended 



192 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

A. D. 306, when for the first time a Christian em- 
peror sat upon the throne of the Caesars. These 
persecutions were among the birth-pangs of the 
kingdom of Christ, in its struggle with the pagan 
power, to get a safe and sure standing-place on 
the earth. 

In the eighteenth chapter we have the fall of 
the pagan power described. The angel which 
John saw " cried mightily with a strong voice, 
saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is 
become the habitation of devils, and the hold of 
every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean 
and hateful bird." This, and the graphic language 
which follows, shows the fall of Rome, the mystic 
Babylon, and the desolation of them who were in 
sympathy with her, or had given themselves to the 
riches and the pleasures of the world. 

In the nineteenth chapter there is given a de- 
scription of a jubilee in heaven over the downfall 
of the pagan power. " And after these things I 
heard a great voice of much people, in heaven, say- 
ing, Alleluia ! salvation, and glory, and honor, and 
power unto the Lord our God," etc., verses 1--10. 
The remaining part of the chapter consists of a 
vision of Christ. " The Word of God " ; " the 
King of kings and Lord of lords," sitting upon a 
white horse and going forth to the conquests of 
the earth. All that oppose him are cast alive into 
a lake of fire and brimstone, which signifies the 



THE APOCALYPSE. 1 93 

triumph of Christ, and the overthrow of all who 
had said in their hearts, " we will not have this 
man to reign over us." This is most eminently- 
suited to encourage the Christians who were to 
pass through the terrible years of conflict. 

John, in vision, has seen the beast utterly over- 
thrown. But there is one more enemy, the insti- 
gator of the beast, the one from whom he derives 
his inspiration, the great hostile power standing 
back of all persecution, " the dragon, that old ser- 
pent, which is the devil, and [even] Satan." In the 
twentieth chapter, John sees his power restrained, 
and sees him finally " cast into a lake of fire and 
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet 
are." John sees him bound a thousand years. 
This definite period, put for an indefinite one, de- 
notes the restraint of Satan over the followers of 
Christ in this world. He who got the victory over 
Satan in the wilderness of Judea will give victory 
to all that put their trust in him. Such are they 
who are truly born of the Spirit, which is to 
" have part in the first resurrection." They do, in 
an important sense, reign with Christ in this world. 
His will is their will ; they rejoice with Christ in 
his victory, in every conquest made in this world. 
They are children of the kingdon. 

In the twentieth chapter, verses 1-6, John sees 
the martyrs of Christ and all who have a part in 
the first resurrection reigning with Christ. No 
13 



194 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

such interpretation should be given to this passage 
as to make a millennium. This is not prophetic his- 
tory to be interpreted literally, but a vision seen in 
the sky, clothed in abundant drapery. This pas- 
sage, so very figurative in its nature and structure, 
is hardly sufficient upon which to found the doc- 
trine of a millennium, whatever views of it men 
may take. It does however show this grand truth, 
the restraint Satan is subjected to by Christ, over 
all that trust in Christ for power to overcome his 
temptations. It accords with human experience. 

The restraint is not all. John sees a great 
battle (verses 7-15) of Satan and all his hosts, all 
whose names are not in the book of life, arrayed 
against the followers of the Lamb. This is by 
no means a description of a general judgment of 
the righteous and wicked. It is the disposal of 
the wicked that is here seen. Satan leading on his 
host, Gog and Magog, is cast down into a lake of 
fire and brimstone. This denotes putting Satan 
beyond the reach of ever again having any power 
over the saints ; just the state of things beyond 
this world. His followers, the dead, are seen, not 
all the righteous and wicked dead, but the dead in 
trespasses and sins, the spiritually dead, all, both 
small and great, on land and in the sea, are judged 
according to their works, and put forever beyond 
the power to molest in the least those whose 
names are in the " book of life." 



THE APOCALYPSE. 1 95 

John now turns from Rome, the seat of the 
beast, to Jerusalem, the city of the great King, 
from mystic Babylon to the New Jerusalem, from 
the punishment of the wicked to the happy condi- 
tion of the saints. 

In the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters 
the blessedness of the saints on the other side of 
death is the burden of thought. John saw a new 
heaven and a new earth. He saw the holy city, 
the New Jerusalem, the symbol of blessedness, 
coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as 
a bride adorned for her husband. Its walls are 
of magnificent and costly stones, its gates of 
pearl, and its streets are of gold. In the midst is 
the river of the pure water of life. The banks of 
the river are lined with the tree of life, whose 
leaves are for the healing of the nations. The 
light of the city is the glory of God and the Lamb. 
Nothing could exceed this vision in splendor. 
This is the symbol of heaven, the final habitation 
of all who trust and follow Christ and prove faith- 
ful to the end. Interpreting this description too 
literally, we are led away from the truth, and de- 
rive low and false views of heaven ; but keeping 
it as a vision which John saw, a symbol of heaven, 
we form some proper conception of the blessed- 
ness of the saints in glory. It is incidentally 
thrown in that the wicked are forever shut out 
from the city, showing their deplorable condition 



196 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

in contrast with that of the saints. Here we have 
the glorious outcome of a life devoted to Christ. 
We cannot but see how admirably adapted it was 
to sustain the hearts of the early disciples in their 
conflicts with Judaism and paganism, when the 
fires of persecution fiercely burned, and also to en- 
courage and cheer the hearts of the saints in all 
subsequent ages, lifting them toward heaven and 
God. Looking now at the combined effect of all 
the visions which John had, as recorded in Revela- 
tion, we cannot but see how well adapted they are 
to animate and encourage the hearts of all Chris- 
tians to " fight the good fight of faith," and get 
the victory over all spiritual enemies. It is worthy 
of note, that, appended to this inimitable descrip- 
tion of the heavenly city, is the invitation to all 
to come and have a home in it. " And the Spirit 
and the bride say, Come. And let him that hear- 
eth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come. 
And whosoever will, let him take the water of life 
freely." 



CONCLUSION. 197 



CONCLUSION. 

The writer is well aware that the views ex- 
pressed in this volume differ from those held by 
many Christians, as they have been handed down 
in their form of expression from generation to gen- 
eration. But it must be borne in mind that much 
of the best of truth in Scripture is expressed in 
figurative language. The prophecies are full of 
it. Read Isaiah and Jeremiah. "The wolf also 
shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie 
down with the kid ; and the calf and the young 
lion and the fatling together ; and a little child 
shall lead them." This will never be literally ful- 
filled, but it shows the mighty transforming power 
of the gospel over men's hearts. Christ spoke 
much in parables. Underneath the parabolic lan- 
guage lay the real truth. John in the Apocalypse 
saw the truth in visions. Inside of the drapery 
of language is the absolute truth. The more we 
can divest the truth from the drapery of the lan- 
guage, the better understanding of the truth we 
get. But if one cannot conceive the truth with- 
out the drapery, then let him hold on to the dra- 
pery. Christ is present reigning in his kingdom, 
and will be more visibly present to the saints after 



I98 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 

death. But if one cannot conceive of his pres- 
ence otherwise than by his personal coming and 
presence, then let him conceive of it thus, for 
better so than not at all, for the saints are now 
and forever shall be under the eye of their beloved 
Lord. If one cannot conceive of a future life 
otherwise than by a literal resurrection of the 
body from the grave, let him believe that ; better 
so than not to have a firm assurance of future life. 
If one cannot conceive how God can judge all 
men according to the deeds done in the body, only 
as he conceives of it as taking place on a general 
judgment day, and under the process of a civil 
court with which he may be familiar, then let him 
conceive of it thus, for God will surely judge the 
world. If one cannot conceive of the retributive 
justice of God only as he conceives of it under the 
figure of the " gnawing of the worm that dieth 
not," and the "burning of the fire which shall 
not be quenched," of a "lake of fire and brim- 
stone," of "outer darkness," of "being shut out 
of the holy city," then let him hold on to these 
figures of speech as literal truth, for this truth is 
in them, God will surely and terribly punish the 
wicked. If one cannot conceive of heaven other- 
wise than through the medium of a holy city with 
its jasper walls, pearly gates, and golden streets, 
then let him cling to a literal New Jerusalem, for 
Christ will surely bring the redeemed to glory, 



CONCLUSION. 



199 



But let us not forget that God's thoughts and 
ways are as much above ours, as the heavens are 
higher than the earth. 

Besides the belief that the view given in this 
treatise is scriptural, we cannot but think it pref- 
erable to the one which relegates the coming 
of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the 
judgment to a future period, called the end of the 
world, because it gives a clearer consciousness of 
a present Christ reigning in his kingdom, in the 
hearts of his people. It dispels the uncertainty of 
resurrection and judgment which arises from phys- 
ical difficulties and distance in time. It brings 
heaven nearer to the saints as a source of hope 
and joy, and hell nearer to the wicked as an object 
of dread It makes destiny, either among the 
good or the bad, close at hand. 



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